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A Global Sharing Mechanism of Resources: Modeling a Crucial Step in the Fight against Pandemics

To face crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, resources such as personal protection equipment (PPE) are needed to reduce the infection rate and protect those in close contact with patients. The increasing demand for those products can, together with pandemic-related disruptions in the global supply cha...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: den Nijs, Katinka, Edivaldo, Jose, Châtel, Bas D. L., Uleman, Jeroen F., Olde Rikkert, Marcel, Wertheim, Heiman, Quax, Rick
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9141328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35627470
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105930
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author den Nijs, Katinka
Edivaldo, Jose
Châtel, Bas D. L.
Uleman, Jeroen F.
Olde Rikkert, Marcel
Wertheim, Heiman
Quax, Rick
author_facet den Nijs, Katinka
Edivaldo, Jose
Châtel, Bas D. L.
Uleman, Jeroen F.
Olde Rikkert, Marcel
Wertheim, Heiman
Quax, Rick
author_sort den Nijs, Katinka
collection PubMed
description To face crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, resources such as personal protection equipment (PPE) are needed to reduce the infection rate and protect those in close contact with patients. The increasing demand for those products can, together with pandemic-related disruptions in the global supply chain, induce major local resource scarcities. During the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we witnessed a reflex of ‘our people first’ in many regions. In this paper, however, we show that a cooperative sharing mechanism can substantially improve the ability to face epidemics. We present a stylized model in which communities share their resources such that each can receive them whenever a local epidemic flares up. Our main finding is that cooperative sharing can prevent local resource exhaustion and reduce the total number of infected cases. Crucially, beneficial effects of sharing are found for a large range of possible community sizes and cooperation combinations, not only for small communities being helped by large communities. Furthermore, we show that the success of sharing resources heavily depends on having a sufficiently long delay between the onsets of epidemics in different communities. These results thus urge for the pairing of a global sharing mechanism with measures to slow down the spread of infections from one community to the other. Our work uses a stylized model to convey an important and clear message to a broad public, advocating that cooperative sharing strategies in international resource crises are the most beneficial strategy for all. It stresses essential underlying principles of and contributes to designing a resilient global supply chain mechanism able to deal with future pandemics by design, rather than being subjected to the coincidental and unequal distribution of opportunities per community that we see at present.
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spelling pubmed-91413282022-05-28 A Global Sharing Mechanism of Resources: Modeling a Crucial Step in the Fight against Pandemics den Nijs, Katinka Edivaldo, Jose Châtel, Bas D. L. Uleman, Jeroen F. Olde Rikkert, Marcel Wertheim, Heiman Quax, Rick Int J Environ Res Public Health Article To face crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, resources such as personal protection equipment (PPE) are needed to reduce the infection rate and protect those in close contact with patients. The increasing demand for those products can, together with pandemic-related disruptions in the global supply chain, induce major local resource scarcities. During the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, we witnessed a reflex of ‘our people first’ in many regions. In this paper, however, we show that a cooperative sharing mechanism can substantially improve the ability to face epidemics. We present a stylized model in which communities share their resources such that each can receive them whenever a local epidemic flares up. Our main finding is that cooperative sharing can prevent local resource exhaustion and reduce the total number of infected cases. Crucially, beneficial effects of sharing are found for a large range of possible community sizes and cooperation combinations, not only for small communities being helped by large communities. Furthermore, we show that the success of sharing resources heavily depends on having a sufficiently long delay between the onsets of epidemics in different communities. These results thus urge for the pairing of a global sharing mechanism with measures to slow down the spread of infections from one community to the other. Our work uses a stylized model to convey an important and clear message to a broad public, advocating that cooperative sharing strategies in international resource crises are the most beneficial strategy for all. It stresses essential underlying principles of and contributes to designing a resilient global supply chain mechanism able to deal with future pandemics by design, rather than being subjected to the coincidental and unequal distribution of opportunities per community that we see at present. MDPI 2022-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC9141328/ /pubmed/35627470 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105930 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
den Nijs, Katinka
Edivaldo, Jose
Châtel, Bas D. L.
Uleman, Jeroen F.
Olde Rikkert, Marcel
Wertheim, Heiman
Quax, Rick
A Global Sharing Mechanism of Resources: Modeling a Crucial Step in the Fight against Pandemics
title A Global Sharing Mechanism of Resources: Modeling a Crucial Step in the Fight against Pandemics
title_full A Global Sharing Mechanism of Resources: Modeling a Crucial Step in the Fight against Pandemics
title_fullStr A Global Sharing Mechanism of Resources: Modeling a Crucial Step in the Fight against Pandemics
title_full_unstemmed A Global Sharing Mechanism of Resources: Modeling a Crucial Step in the Fight against Pandemics
title_short A Global Sharing Mechanism of Resources: Modeling a Crucial Step in the Fight against Pandemics
title_sort global sharing mechanism of resources: modeling a crucial step in the fight against pandemics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9141328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35627470
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105930
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