Initial COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Policy Optimisation

As COVID-19 becoming a global epidemic, owing to the interventions' operation limited efficacy and virus' super transmission ability, the vaccine is considered the most potent method left to cease the COVID-19 effectively. At the beginning of the vaccine distribution policy design, there were many real concerns: vaccine priority, budget control, vaccine inventory limitation, and expected objectives making the problem complex. The research optimised the vaccine distribution policy (VDP) in an explicit form incorporated in an age-stratified SEIR model based on the proposed policy optimisation methodology. The VDP could explain when and how many vaccines to take for each age group. The designed evaluation system consisted of direct policy cost, indirect healthcare cost, and extra financial budget during the pandemic, combined as a weighted sum equalling one to suit flexible scenarios and decision-makers' requirements. A case study with ground truth data in the U.K was implemented, where the optimised VDP could decrease the comprehensive cost and suppress the virus transmission. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis demonstrated the effect of some critical parameters for optimised VDP. The vaccination priority and policy objectives' weight combination play a significant role in impacting the VDP optimisation. The research could be a framework for flexible vaccination policy design in different scenarios by changing weights, vaccine limitations, and other initial parameter configurations.