Determining the optimum location of facilities is critical in many fields, particularly in healthcare This study proposes the application of a suitable location model for field hospitals during the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic The used model is the most appropriate among the three most common location models utilized to solve healthcare problems (the set covering model, the maximal covering model, and the P-median model) The proposed nonlinear binary constrained model is a slight modification of the maximal covering model with a set of nonlinear constraints The model is used to determine the optimum location of field hospitals for COVID-19 risk reduction The designed mathematical model and the solution method are used to deploy field hospitals in eight governorates in Upper Egypt In this case study, a discrete binary gaining–sharing knowledge-based optimization (DBGSK) algorithm is proposed The DBGSK algorithm is based on how humans acquire and share knowledge throughout their life The DBGSK algorithm mainly depends on two junior and senior binary stages These two stages enable DBGSK to explore and exploit the search space efficiently and effectively, and thus it can solve problems in binary space