Valizadeh Jaber, Hafezalkotob Ashkan, Seyed Alizadeh Seyed Mehdi, Mozafari Peyman
Department of Management, Saveh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahid Beheshti Boulevard, Shahid Fahmideh Boulevard, PO Box: 366-39187, Saveh, Iran.
College of Industrial Engineering, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Entezari Alley, Oskoui Alley, Choobi Bridge, Postal Code: 1151863411, Tehran, Iran.
Sustain Cities Soc. 2021 Jun;69:102814. doi: 10.1016/j.scs.2021.102814. Epub 2021 Feb 26.
The outbreak of COVID-19 has posed significant challenges to governments across the world. The increase in hazardous infectious waste (HIW) caused by the pandemic is associated with the risk of transmitting the virus. In this study, hazardous waste includes infectious waste generated both by individuals and by hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. To control the outbreak by maintaining social distance and home quarantine protocols, daily necessities and health supplies must be provided to the people affected. Governments play an essential role in the management of the crisis, creating an elaborate plan for collecting HIW and providing necessities and health supplies. This paper proposes a leader-follower approach for hazardous infectious waste collection and government aid distribution to control COVID-19. At the top level of the model, government policies are designed to support people by distributing daily necessities and health supplies, and to support contractors by waste collection. The lower level of the model is related to the operational decisions of contractors with limited capacities. Due to the potential risk of virus transmission via contaminated waste, the proposed model considers the complications imposed on contractors at the lower level. Applying a stochastic programming approach, four possible scenarios are examined, dependent of the severity of the outbreak. As a solution approach, the Benders decomposition method is combined with Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions. The results show that government support, in addition to much better management of citizen demand, can control the spread of the virus by implementing quarantine decisions.
新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）疫情给世界各国政府带来了重大挑战。疫情导致的有害传染性废物（HIW）增加与病毒传播风险相关。在本研究中，有害废物包括COVID-19疫情期间个人和医院产生的传染性废物。为了通过保持社交距离和居家隔离措施来控制疫情爆发，必须向受影响的民众提供生活必需品和医疗用品。政府在危机管理中发挥着至关重要的作用，制定了详细的有害传染性废物收集计划，并提供生活必需品和医疗用品。本文提出了一种领导者-跟随者方法，用于有害传染性废物收集和政府援助分配，以控制COVID-19疫情。在模型的顶层，政府政策旨在通过分发生活必需品和医疗用品来支持民众，并通过废物收集来支持承包商。模型的底层与能力有限的承包商的运营决策相关。由于病毒通过受污染废物传播的潜在风险，所提出的模型考虑了底层承包商面临的复杂情况。应用随机规划方法，根据疫情的严重程度研究了四种可能的情景。作为一种求解方法，将本德尔斯分解法与卡鲁什-库恩-塔克条件相结合。结果表明，政府的支持除了能更好地管理民众需求外，还可以通过实施隔离决策来控制病毒的传播。
