Optimal Selection of COVID-19 Vaccination Sites at the Municipal Level

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this work, we present an approach to determine the optimal location of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination sites at the municipal level. We assume that each municipality or town is subdivided into smaller administrative units, which we refer to as villages or barangays. The proposed method solves a minimization problem arising from a facility location problem, which is formulated based on the proximity of the vaccination sites to the villages, number of COVID-19 cases, and population densities of the villages. We present a numerical scheme to solve the optimization problem and give a detailed description of the algorithm, which is coded in Python. To make the results reproducible, the codes used in this study are uploaded to a public repository, which also contains complete instructions on how to use them. As an illustration, we apply our method in determining the optimal location of vaccination sites in San Juan, a town in the province of Batangas, in the Philippines. We hope that this study may guide the local government units in coming up with strategic plans for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.