Abstract

and the subsequent global development of COVID-19 vaccines, it can still be difficult to predict whether the current pandemic will turn into an endemic event. Variation in the pandemic measures could result in emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, which may follow distinct evolutionary pathway compared to previous variants. Achieving herd-immunity threshold against SARS-CoV-2 infections can be difficult due to factors like vaccine hesitancy, vaccine inequity, etc. The current COVID-19 vaccines are primarily effective in preventing the disease symptoms in patients, and prevent hospitalizations and deaths, but strong evidence in favor of their ability to prevent new infections is weak, till date. Therefore, it is crucial to continuously develop efficient antiviral medications that can be taken at home. This will reduce the need for hospitalization and ICU admissions, which will relieve pressure on many countries’ underdeveloped healthcare systems. Additionally, robust high-throughput genome surveillance in realtime will help to precisely profile SARS-CoV-2 variants in circulation. Urgent need also exists for a reliable and one-size-fits-all serological tests that will help in retrospective contact tracing, investigation of asymptomatic infections, and presence of humoral protective immunity in the population, along with SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell profiling in COVID-19 patients. The potential immunological parameters specific to COVID-19 disease pathology must be assessed in high-powered population surveillance studies to better manage the disease. Also, communication of comprehensive pandemic surveillance data must be communicated in simple languages to the public.