Fuzzy logic and the pandemic

There are management principles applicable to the logistics of vaccine purchase and distribution that might have mitigated the colossal bungling by the authorities in charge of the anti-coronavirus vaccines. A brief listing includes Just-in-Time (JIT) inventory management, economic order quantity (EOQ), reorder point (ROP) and decoupling stock formulae. Mastering each would have assured timeliness, adequacy, operational continuity and buffer stocks.

So unlike the nebulous and fuzzy logic of politics and the Pavlovian education inculcated in the medulla of those in charge of our pandemic responses, the skills needed are analytical and quantitative, both requiring precision.

Had those in charge been educated enough in management science efficiencies, especially in the mathematics of queuing, inventory and cost control or even if they simply were equipped with basic foresight sufficient to prevent

the avoidable inconvenience and the desperation inflicted ever since the first dosages of smuggled Chinese contraband vaccines in the third and fourth quarters of 2020, to recent donations from the global COVAX Facility, then the public’s growing disgust might have been mitigated.

Note some of the avoidable problems that simple planning and a little cranial activity might have addressed.

The first two involved requisite documentation for the initial order of Pfizer vaccines and the need for an indemnification agreement, par for the course for novel vaccines, especially those under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Of these, the first resulted in forfeiting a substantial volume that eventually went to Singapore. The second led to eleventh-hour legislation hurriedly drafted and passed in the immediate weeks predicating a

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Carpet bombing a microbe does not work. The failures are proof.

surge that bloated daily cases over fifteenfold within days. Both were however products of inexperience and gross ignorance more than the sheer lack of managerial competence.

A third unfortunate episode further highlights ignorance and segues us into the area of quantitative analysis. It has to do with the contractual liabilities of third-party subcontractors and brings to bear the formulae we mentioned earlier.

When we still had a limited supply of the relatively superior albeit donated AztraZeneca (AZ) vaccines, we risked destroying a good number of doses meant for the Bicol

Region by failing to adhere to delicate cold chain requisites. Within days, the AZ vaccines we reserved for seniors ran out and the drug authorities had to compromise by quickly allowing another vaccine emergency usage despite warnings from the World Health Organization.

As the two donated vaccine brands rolled out, the ineptitude of the vaccine authorities quickly surfaced where we had to compromise, replace, herd vaccinees across inoculation centers, and worse, fuel desperation where repurposed chemicals, one for aquarium disinfection, another for hair lice and heartworms, suddenly became options to vaccination.

Our lip-service mantra that science leads the way in pandemic response requires that the authorities put on their thinking caps, crunch the numbers, and do the quantitative analysis. Carpet bombing a microbe does not work. The failures are proof. Simply tossing a grenade on an elusive protein is for ditty bopper trench monkeys, leathernecks, and jarheads. Intelligent pandemic management requires better leadership.

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The skills needed are analytical and quantitative, both requiring precision.