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Game theory used to model the impact of earlier stockpiling and increased PPE storage during COVID-19
Kingston University London researchers have used a mathematical model known as a game theory to explore how the challenge of securing sufficient levels of vital personal protective equipment
(PPE) for healthcare workers during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic could have been mitigated.
The need to protect frontline staff and key workers from coronavirus created an extraordinary demand for PPE across the globe in early 2020, resulting in inflated prices as countries competed against each other to secure huge orders of surgical masks, goggles, face shields, gowns, and gloves.
Healthcare worker checks PPE before treating patients. Image: Simon Davis/DFID A study published by researchers at Kingston University (KU) uncovered major shortfalls in the government s sourcing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers on the frontlines of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK last year. The research used mathematical models linked with predictive game theory , and showed that implementing alternative sourcing models developed in the research could have saved the government billions of pounds and increased their storage capacity for the essential protective gear tenfold . The open-access study witnessed KU academics partner with researchers from Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar in the application of game theory to group decision making when it came to PPE sourcing during the first wave.