An Optimization Model for Managing Reagents and Swab Testing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is having an irreversible effect on millions of people around the world. This new pathology is characterized by symptomatic patients who need hospital care, paucisymptomatic patients but also asymptomatic patients who could considerably spread the virus without being aware of it; therefore, the virus spreads very quickly and swab tests for viral presence are used to diagnose positive cases. In this paper we present a multi-period resource allocation model with the objective of simultaneously maximize the quantity of all analyzed swabs while minimizing the time required to obtain the swabs result, the costs due to increase the number of swabs analyzed per unit time and the cost to transfer swabs between laboratories (when a laboratory receives more swab tests than it can analyze).