Game Theory Can Help Manage the Competition for Medical Supplies
The world is still reeling from the pandemic, among other things, including the shortage of medical supplies. According to Anna Nagurney from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the world has experienced natural disasters; nevertheless, they are typically limited in time, duration, and location. However, Coronavirus has badly impacted the globe for many months.
To be precise, critical medical product supply chains have significantly become stressed due to the astronomical increase in demand for ventilators, to masks to testing supplies. Nagurney researched perishable product supply chains with applications varying from blood to personal protective equipment. Many PPE and medical supplies have a limited lifespan, and in the US National Stockpile, some no longer met the quality standards, according to CNN in early May. As Nagurney says, the pandemic has shown everyone that competition for these items, yet limited supplies, is a reality.
Nagurney goes on father to say that game theory, the study of strategies under competition, can be of assistance. She introduces many steps in a global supply chain. According to her, she describes a supply chain as the steps in a chain that a product takes to get from production to consumers.
These steps were no more complicated in traditional farming communities than growing tomatoes and carrying them by a cart to a market. In large part since globalization, a product supply chain can now originate in a remote town in Asia, take other additional parts in China, and be assembled there, with subsequent movement across the ocean to Los Angeles and more transportation across the United States.
Over the past ten years, medical supplies production has migrated to countries with low production costs. For instance, China now produces half of the world’s supply of face masks. With the Coronavirus starting in Wuhan, China, the Chinese leaders dedicated most of the reserve to their use. Other countries, such as Germany, have banned the export of their locally produced PPEs and medical supplies.
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