  During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were over three million infections in Los
Angeles County (LAC). To facilitate distribution when vaccines first became
available, LAC set up six mega-sites for dispensing a large number of vaccines
to the public. To understand if another choice of mega-site location would have
improved accessibility and health outcomes, and to provide insight into future
vaccine allocation problems, we propose a multi-objective mixed integer linear
programming model that balances travel convenience, infection reduction, and
equitable distribution. We provide a tractable objective formulation that
effectively proxies real-world public health goals of reducing infections while
considering travel inconvenience and equitable distribution of resources.
Compared with the solution empirically used in LAC in 2020, we recommend more
dispersed mega-site locations that result in a 28% reduction in travel
inconvenience and avert an additional 1,000 infections.
