Modelling the effects of social distancing, antiviral therapy, and booster shots on mitigating Omicron spread.

As the COVID-19 situation changes because of emerging variants and updated vaccines, an elaborate mathematical model is essential in crafting proactive and effective control strategies. We propose a COVID-19 mathematical model considering variants, booster shots, waning, and antiviral drugs. We quantify the effects of social distancing in the Republic of Korea by estimating the reduction in transmission induced by government policies from February 26, 2021 to February 3, 2022. Simulations show that the next epidemic peak can be estimated by investigating the effects of waning immunity. This research emphasizes that booster vaccination should be administered right before the next epidemic wave, which follows the increasing waned population. Policymakers are recommended to monitor the waning population immunity using mathematical models or other predictive methods. Moreover, our simulations considering a new variant's transmissibility, severity, and vaccine evasion suggest intervention measures that can reduce the severity of COVID-19.

Optimal selection of COVID-19 vaccination sites in the Philippines at the municipal level.

In this work, we present an approach to determine the optimal location of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination sites at the municipal level. We assume that each municipality is subdivided into smaller administrative units, which we refer to as 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 barangays, the number of COVID-19 cases, and the population densities of the barangays. These objectives are formulated as a single optimization problem. As an alternative decision support tool, we develop a bi-objective optimization problem that considers distance and population coverage. Lastly, we propose a dynamic optimization approach that recalculates the optimal vaccination sites to account for the changes in the population of the barangays that have completed their vaccination program. A numerical scheme that solves the optimization problems is presented and the detailed description of the algorithms, which are coded in Python and MATLAB, are uploaded to a public repository. As an illustration, we apply our method to determine the optimal location of vaccination sites in San Juan, a municipality in the province of Batangas, in the Philippines. We hope that this study may guide the local government units in coming up with strategic and accessible plans for vaccine administration.