Optimal vaccine distribution

A non-pandemic-related topic that truly captures my interest escapes me these days. When people you know or family members of people you know have been exposed or are sick with COVID-19, it is difficult to get the pandemic off of one’s mind.

I have been receiving court circulars in my news feed since two weeks ago regarding physical closures of courtrooms and prosecution offices for disinfection and contact tracing. Not that I am complaining. The first two months under lockdown last year brought much of a lawyer’s work to a halt, but the legal system quickly figured out a way to function despite the physical limitations brought about by public health measures. It has to, because respect for the rule of law has never been more important than it is in times of a pandemic.

A shrinking economy is bound to take its toll on everyone, especially ordinary wage earners and the informal sector workers who are the first ones to fall through the cracks. The unseen costs are also enormous. Vaccines are our only way out of this crisis.

But now that the vaccines are here, we are faced with an immense challenge because of limited supplies and distribution channels. Thus, we are left with no choice but to prioritize access. So the question is: Who do we vaccinate first?

Prioritizing the poor in the vaccination program is good political soundbite but is not a sound vaccine distribution strategy. We ought not to leave someone behind, but if we really want to help the entire community, we must adopt an optimal vaccination strategy.

Of course, in the initial stages of the vaccination, medical frontliners must be prioritized. But as more supplies arrive, people across various priority groups will have to be considered. Among them are the frontline economic workers.

A resolution along this tenor was sponsored by Cebu City Councilor Alvin Dizon and adopted recently by the Cebu City Council. The city council wants economic workers included in the sectors that will be prioritized in the city’s COVID-19 vaccination program. These are workers who must be physically available to keep the shops and factories running. They are composed of relatively young people but they are most exposed to the risk of infection every day because of their important physical role in the economy.

Likewise, setting political correctness aside, for me we must also prioritize government officials and employees. They are at the forefront in keeping the institutions of law and order functioning at this crucial time.

Whatever method we may adopt, the key here is optimal vaccine distribution. There are several proposed distribution models being studied by experts. One of them is the clustering-based solution to select optimal distribution centers in conjunction with the basic priorities (age, exposure, vulnerability, etc.), but with the flexibility to accommodate a wide range of demographics.

In a study published last December 2020 in the online peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports, it was suggested that while present vaccination guidelines largely focus on individual-based factors, a strategic spatiotemporal distribution of vaccines should also be considered. It means prioritizing certain cities or areas which can help to increase the overall survival rate of a population in a pandemic.

Personally, I won’t claim to be in any of those priority groups. I rarely go out of the house. Most of the productive work I do I have been doing online in front of the computer since the pandemic began. Yet I pray we can have more supplies arriving within the next six months for everyone who meet the criteria for urgent vaccination.