COVID-19 vaccination policies under uncertain transmission characteristics using stochastic programming.

Autor: Gujjula KR; Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America., Gong J; Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America., Segundo B; Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America., Ntaimo L; Wm Michael Barnes '64 Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2022 Jul 22; Vol. 17 (7), pp. e0270524. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Jul 22 (Print Publication: 2022).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270524
Abstrakt: We develop a new stochastic programming methodology for determining optimal vaccination policies for a multi-community heterogeneous population. An optimal policy provides the minimum number of vaccinations required to drive post-vaccination reproduction number to below one at a desired reliability level. To generate a vaccination policy, the new method considers the uncertainty in COVID-19 related parameters such as efficacy of vaccines, age-related variation in susceptibility and infectivity to SARS-CoV-2, distribution of household composition in a community, and variation in human interactions. We report on a computational study of the new methodology on a set of neighboring U.S. counties to generate vaccination policies based on vaccine availability. The results show that to control outbreaks at least a certain percentage of the population should be vaccinated in each community based on pre-determined reliability levels. The study also reveals the vaccine sharing capability of the proposed approach among counties under limited vaccine availability. This work contributes a decision-making tool to aid public health agencies worldwide in the allocation of limited vaccines under uncertainty towards controlling epidemics through vaccinations.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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