@TruelyonelastSchlep
The vaccines have all been shown to work against the SA variant. Reduction in there effectiveness against infection but still at a level to make a DRAMATIC difference
It is a bugger if a combination of these two has a wave but not enough to muck things up for long. Especially because enough people would be vaccinated by then. Interestingly enough the mutation from the SA variant is thought to be the worst this virus is likely to do and that is brilliant. The vaccines have nailed that mutation.
Have you a source for that claim, because the only study I'm aware of on the AZ vaccine was one in which protection against symptomatic infection was pretty much 0. Granted, protection against serious illness was still expected, but I haven't seen any real-world data to support that.
Secondly - "the worst this virus is likely to do"??? I guarantee no qualified person has made a claim like that. So where on earth did you read it?? The SA variant is actually fairly innocuous because although it has vaccine escape capability, it isn't anywhere near as infectious as the Delta strain, hence it hasn't spread.
The Nepal strain is the worst so far, but in the event of a wave of infections in a highly vaccinated country, a variant with MUCH stronger vaccine evasion capabilities is likely to arise.
A lot of assumptions were made early on about the ability of sars-cov-2 to mutate, based on our previous experience with coronaviruses, but most of them have gone out the window long since. Sars-Cov-2 is a LOT more adaptable than anyone expected.