Online Heuristic Approach for Efficient Allocation of Limited COVID-19 Testing Kits

Muhammad Alfas, Shaurya Shriyam

2022

Abstract

Testing kit scarcity plays an important role in aggravating any epidemiological response against pandemics such as COVID-19, especially for resource-constrained countries. Better decision-making tools are essential to assist policymakers in containing the disease from spreading to a large extent despite limited resource availability. We propose a testing kit allocation framework that comprises three components: estimation of time-varying prevalence rates using empirical Bayes model, testing kit allocation using multi-armed bandit algorithms, and pooled testing technique to extract the maximum utility from the available testing kits. We conduct simulation experiments based on real-world data and obtain results to demonstrate the enhanced efficiency in detecting COVID-19 cases. We conclude that Bayesian estimation of prevalence coupled with bandit-based allocation performs significantly well. We also identify scenarios under which pooled testing offers a strong advantage.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Alfas M. and Shriyam S. (2022). Online Heuristic Approach for Efficient Allocation of Limited COVID-19 Testing Kits. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems - Volume 1: ICORES, ISBN 978-989-758-548-7, pages 329-336. DOI: 10.5220/0010818600003117

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icores22,
author={Muhammad Alfas and Shaurya Shriyam},
title={Online Heuristic Approach for Efficient Allocation of Limited COVID-19 Testing Kits},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems - Volume 1: ICORES,},
year={2022},
pages={329-336},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010818600003117},
isbn={978-989-758-548-7},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems - Volume 1: ICORES,
TI - Online Heuristic Approach for Efficient Allocation of Limited COVID-19 Testing Kits
SN - 978-989-758-548-7
AU - Alfas M.
AU - Shriyam S.
PY - 2022
SP - 329
EP - 336
DO - 10.5220/0010818600003117