As Nature notes:
In a September preprint, Cao and his colleagues evaluated the capacity of the new crop of variants to evade neutralizing antibodies from vaccination and previous infection with other variants. They found that BQ.1.1 (a member of the BQ.1 family with one extra spike change) and BA.2.75.2 were the most immune evasive, even able to dodge most neutralizing antibodies elicited by infection with BA.5. Two antibody drugs were still effective against BA.2 and BA.5, but they are likely to lose much of their potency against many of the emerging Omicron subvariants, the study suggests. Another team, including Peacock, came to similar conclusions about BA.2.75.2. “The degree of immune escape and evasion is amazing right now, crazy,” says Cao. On the basis of initial estimates, Wenseleers thinks that autumn–winter waves will be similar in size to BA.5 surges, at least as far as infection numbers go. What’s harder to predict is the effect on hospitalizations. The build-up of population immunity from vaccination and previous infection is likely to keep admissions lower than during past COVID-19 waves, say researchers, but how low is unclear. “While a completely different game than it would have been in 2020 or 2021, a surge still would probably be associated with an increase in deaths and an increase in hospitalizations,” says Lessler. But even a relatively muted COVID-19 wave could put strain on hospitals, which are facing backlogs and other conditions that put a heavy burden on health systems in the winter. Influenza, which has barely registered over the past two winters, is likely to come back with a vengeance in the Northern Hemisphere this season, stoking fears of a ‘twindemic’ of influenza and COVID-19. “In a bad flu year, hospital systems get pretty stressed,” says Lessler.
So what does this mean? Not really clear but keep those masks handy and get a bivalent shot. This is not/never going away. And with BU generating more deadly ones, who knows.
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