Comparison of health-oriented cross-regional allocation strategies for the COVID-19 vaccine: a mathematical modelling study

Figures & data

Table 1. Health-oriented vaccine allocation strategies.

No.	Allocation strategy	Weight to allocate vaccine resources in each region
1	Report-based	Cumulative number of confirmed cases
2	Report-pop-based	Total number of confirmed cases as a proportion of the regional population
3	Infect-based	Cumulative number of confirmed and suspected cases
4	Report-pop-calibrated	Cumulative number of confirmed cases calibrated to the regional population size
5	New-infect	Number of new suspected and confirmed cases
6	New-infect-pop-based	Number of new suspected and confirmed cases as a proportion of the regional population
7	New-infect-pop-calibrated	Cumulative number of new suspected and confirmed cases calibrated by the regional population size
8	Particle swarm	Particle swarm optimisation with the objective of minimising the total number of confirmed cases
9	Imported-based	Cumulative number of imported cases
10	Death-based	Cumulative number of deaths
11	Pop-based	Total population
12	Average	Equal allocation

Table 2. Description of scenarios with different population sizes, prevention and control capabilities and initial number of infections.

Scenarios	No.	Population size	Prevention and control ability	Initial infection number
Two-region Scenarios	A1	Small	High	Low
	A2	Large	Low	High
	B1	Small	Low	High
	B2	Large	High	Low
	C1	Small	Low	Low
	C2	Large	High	High
	D1	Small	High	High
	D2	Large	Low	Low
Eight-region Scenarios	E1	Small	High	Low
	E2	Large	Low	High
	E3	Small	High	High
	E4	Large	Low	Low
	E5	Small	Low	Low
	E6	Large	High	High
	E7	Small	Low	High
	E8	Large	High	Low
Random-region Scenarios	–	Random	Random	Random

Note. High prevention and control ability means that (a) every resident has an average of 2 days in the social distancing control state and does not have contact with outsiders; (b) all patients within the incubation period or with symptomatic infection who have not been hospitalised have a 40% probability of being tracked and will be isolated after 5 days on average and (c) the initial frequency of mask wearing is 50%. Low prevention and control ability means that (a) each resident has only 1 day of social distancing control and does not have contact with outsiders; (b) all patients in the incubation period or with symptomatic infection who have not been hospitalised have a 20% probability of being tracked and will be isolated after 7 days on average and (c) the initial frequency of mask wearing is 30%. Small and large population sizes were defined as 2 million and 10 million, respectively. The low and high numbers of initial infections were defined as 10 and 50, respectively.

Figure 1. Structure of Infectious Diseases Dynamic Model.

Figure 2. Total number of confirmed cases in the two-region model with 12 vaccine allocation strategies.

Figure 3. Vaccine allocation quantity of 12 vaccine allocation strategies in the two-region model.

Figure 4. Trajectory of confirmed cases after adopting the 12 vaccine allocation strategies in the eight-region model.

Figure 5. Number of allocations for the vaccine allocation strategy using particle swarm optimisation in the eight-region model.

Figure 6. Multiples of the final number of confirmed cases for 11 vaccine allocation strategies in random scenarios relative to the vaccine allocation strategy based on particle swarm optimisation.

Data availability statement

Cause the data supporting the findings of this study is virtual, the authors confirm that the data are available within the article and its supplementary materials.