Vaccines alone may not be enough to end pandemic

Rasmussen says that from a biological perspective, it would be unlikely that a vaccine that protects well against disease would not protect against infection. "But just like the vaccines don't offer a hundred percent protection against getting sick, they also aren't a hundred percent likely to protect against transmission."

In addition, while vaccines reportedly will become widely available in the U.S. by summer, that is not the case in the rest of the world where the pandemic continues unabated.

"Asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission poses a unique challenge for public health and infection prevention mitigation efforts," says Popescu. "Ultimately this is something we will need to continuously keep our eye on as we move into the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and a reduction of disease due to vaccinations."

Rasmussen and Popescu conclude, "Until there is widespread implementation of robust surveillance and epidemiological measures that allow us to put out these smokeless fires, the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be fully extinguished.