Inventory Allocation Of COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Chain Under Bounded Rationality Of Inoculation Objects

In 2020,the COVID-19 swept the world and affected the lives of all people.For that the COVID-19 vaccine was born.The historical experience shows that vaccination is an effective method against infectious diseases.On one hand,it can inhibit the spread of the virus and keep the COVID-19 epidemic under control.On the other hand,it can form resistance,which reduce or prevent the harm to the human body.However,due to the problems associated with vaccination,the voluntary vaccination strategy is still the most common worldwide vaccination strategy.This gave birth to a classic academic problem—vaccine-dilemma.People may hesitate or refuse vaccination because of bounded rationality,utility judgment,or free-ride psychology.The complexity of vaccine production,and the high requirements for cold-chain transportation and storage also lead to uncertainty in supply.In the early stage of the outbreak,under the limit of vaccines and the uncertainty of supply and demand,how to make the allocation decisions for the balance of supply and demand is the main aim of this research.Focusing on the characteristics of the vaccine supply chain,this research uses an evolutionary game theoretical model to make recommendations for the vaccine suppliers and decision-makers from the perspective of inventory allocation.First,the members in the division evolutionary game are the inoculation objects,the suppliers responsible for purchasing,transporting,and distributing vaccines,and the decision-makers who do not participate in the game process but make macro-decisions and do interventions.The decision-making characteristics of the three are analyzed through the practical perspective of COVID-19 vaccination.Secondly,by quantifying the decisions of vaccine recipients and vaccine suppliers,this research simulating a population composed of several structured subgroups.Using real historical data,deduced the spread trend of the epidemic under different decisions.The results shows that the allocation strategy which considering efficiency and fairness of the virus can effectively reduce the risk of group infection and alleviate the large-scale spread of the epidemic.Finally,adding the intervention factors of decision-makers.By considering the decision-making models under different time periods,different intervention combinations,and using the allocation strategy above,this research found that bilateral intervention measures are the most effective under the premise of sufficient budget and production capacity.But ideal bilateral interventions are difficult to achieve,and unilateral interventions towards inoculation objects have a better effect on matching supply and demand.These conclusions can provide implications for supply chain management methods for possible future infectious disease risks.There are 10 figures,11 tables and 71 references in this dissertation.