Vaccines alone may not be enough to end COVID-19 pandemic: Study

*Researchers say COVID-19 Vaccines are great for protecting people against disease, but they do not yet know how well the shots work to protect against transmission

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

Generally, COVID-19 Vaccines have been mentioned as an essential precautionary measure for immunisation against the disruptive novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

But will vaccines themselves be enough to put an end to the damaging pandemic? Researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center in the United States are not so sure as of now. Why?

They point out that, while vaccines are an important tool, they may not decisively put a stop to the spread of the virus.

Dr. Angela L. Rasmussen, one of the researchers, said: “We can’t rely on vaccination alone to control the pandemic. Vaccines are great for protecting people against disease, but we don’t yet know how well they work to protect against transmission.

“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 regard to trouble with symptomless cases, the experts noted that further complicating the goal of tackling transmission of the virus is the pervasiveness of symptomless cases of COVID-19.

The researchers point out that silent transmission of the virus is a key factor allowing it to spread, likely because consumers may be less careful about mitigation efforts if they don’t feel sick or haven’t developed symptoms yet.

According to the research team, tracking asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission of COVID-19 is difficult to achieve, but health officials will need to do their best as more vaccinations are completed and the pandemic moves into its next stage.

“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,” the researchers stated.