Efficient and Effective Large-Scale Vaccine Distribution

To provide the most protection, for the most people, in the least amount of time during a pandemic, an efficient and effective system is needed for allocating and distributing vaccines. By doing so, the risk and severity of illness and the impact of virus variants can be reduced. Short response time is essential and possible. Unfortunately, vaccines were not distributed efficiently and effectively in the United States for COVID-19 in 2021. Since pharmacies were a primary means for vaccinating individuals, daily throughput rates at these locations were too low. In our experience, three to four persons were vaccinated per hour at these locations. Secondly, the time from manufacturer to administration was typically in excess of five weeks. Hence, response time was not short. Another contributing factor to the lengthy response time was box size. In this paper, we establish a general system objective and provide an approach for allocating vaccines in a rolling horizon manner optimally. We demonstrate the consequences of both box size and the number and capacity of dispensing locations on achieving system objectives. The results are dramatic for the small state in our case study, with profound implications for national distribution system design and operation. If vaccines were allocated and distributed according to our proposed strategy, more people would have been vaccinated sooner, fewer people would have symptoms, fewer people would have been hospitalized and fewer people would have succumbed to the disease