Abstract
This study explores an objective way to equitably allocate COVID-19 vaccines, based on vulnerability of states in India. A unique weighted rank approach is introduced to calculate the vulnerability index for each state. Population-adjusted vulnerability index is finally used to make vaccine allocations to all the states, given a limited supply. The resulting allocations are then compared with the allocations made by the Government of India. A comparison of results shows that the allocations made by the proposed model successfully capture the vulnerability aspect of a state and are closer to the actual allocation figures. Finally, a possible extension of the current approach using a nonlinear programming model, under capacity limitations, is discussed.
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Tiwari, R., Sridharan, R. (2023). Equitable Allocation of COVID Vaccines to States in India: An Optimization Approach. In: Gunasekaran, A., Sharma, J.K., Kar, S. (eds) Applications of Operational Research in Business and Industries. Lecture Notes in Operations Research. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8012-1_30
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8012-1_30
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