Optimal Allocation of COVID-19 Test Kits Among Accredited Testing Centers in the Philippines

Christian Alvin H Buhat; Jessa Camille C Duero; Edd Francis O Felix; Jomar Fajardo Rabajante; Jonathan B Mamplata

where S j is the allocation of testing kits to testing center j, and A is the total number of testing kits to be allocated. Here, we use an equity objective function to ensure equal opportunities among all infected individuals in getting tested. We base the objective function to the Euclidean norm to provide a standard result in comparison with other norms [3] . We minimize the equity objective function E, with optimal allocations to each Testing Center (S j ) such that: (i) all available testing kits will be used, (ii) daily limits of testing per testing center will be considered and will not exceed the maximum number of days for testing, (iii) there will be a non-negative supply of testing kits per testing center, and (iv) the number of tested individuals in each community is less than the expected maximum number of infected individuals. Note that each individual will only be subjected to one test, which will serve as an initial testing. We solve this NLP model through simulations in R and explore scenarios such as adding additional testing centers to communities with I i ≥ 5000.