Thanks. Yes, 86 is highly mutated, but according to Dr. Topol (a great regular read on Twitter and Substack, who I'm guessing you know of or maybe even know, given his position as founder/director of Scripps), there should still be some immunity to it from vaccines/previous infection and, as you noted, the T-cell response should be sustainable to prevent severe COVID in the vast majority of people. I'm sure we'll see increased cases, but am doubtful we'll see much increase in hospitalizations and severe cases. We'll have to wait and see of course, since hospitalizations always lag case increases by 2-3 weeks.
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-...id=136368223&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Also, there's a few good articles out there, including the Times article, linked below, on COVID vaccine boosters, detailing how waiting a couple of months (the new boosters will be available in October) is likely the best way to go for most people who want to have the maximum level of protection against severe COVID - clearly, getting another booster is most important for the elderly and immunocompromised, but reducing risk might be worth it for everyone. Some readers of this thread will be interested in this, some not. For those interested, the reasoning for waiting is twofold, as follows.
First, in about two months we'll have the latest versions of the Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax vaccines, which will include the genetic information for the spike protein code for the omicron XBB1.5 variant (in the form of mRNA for Pfizer/Moderna and in the form of the actual viral protein sequence for Novavax - both of which spur the body to make the appropriate antibodies and T-cells for viral immunity), which is the most prevalent variant, although some newer variants are circulating. However, the new boosters will be a bit better for those new variants too, vs. the bivalent booster rolled out last fall, which targeted both the original strain and the omicron BA1.5 strain, neither of which is circulating anymore.
The second reason has to do with immune response decay for the COVID vaccines, which typically starts about 6 months after injection, so waiting until about October will ensure maximum protection through about March, which is when the worst of the infectious disease "season" (flu, COVID, RSV, etc.) is usually over.
One caveat to this is that if someone just had a COVID infection, waiting at least 3 months after that to get a booster makes sense, as an infection will have raised a fairly robust immune response. Also, keep in mind that one would always rather obtain an immunity boost from an extraordinarily safe vaccine than from an infection that could make one sick, possibly severely so.
https://www.nytimes.com/article/covid-booster-fall.html