There is not a lot of data yet. Personally I see this emphasis on surge testing as a sign our government and PH England are taking the virus seriously and doing what is necessary to protect the population from Covid. If we had done this 14 months ago we would have seen far less infections and deaths. I don't read the surge testing as a panic measure, but part of the normal PH responsive that will be needed until Covid is supressed worldwide we will need to do this and other measures to keep new variants down - see it as business as usual.
As for the data - its very sketchy and I would not read too much into it at the moment.
Here is an Israeli newspaper report. Indicating that with vaccinated vs unvaccinated people the prevalence of the SA variant in infected patients was 8 times that of the unvaccinated. - take the 8 times with a pinch of salt.
Real-world Israeli study shows SA variant can break through Pfizer vaccin
So few people had Covid that the sample was too small to rely on the data. There methodology looks sound, but with only 400 cases it was just too few to make any sensible numerical conclusion that 8 times could in reality be only 2 or 3 times if there had been just a couple more or less cases in the study!! so BEWHARE OF NEWPAPER HEADLINES editors run with these numbers to get us to read the article.
In this JP article, they compare vaccinated vs vaccinated patients who tested positive for covid and try to see if there is a difference in SA variant, ie assume the undying SA variant is in the unvaccinated cohort and then see what the effect of vaccination is in the proportion of the vaccinated cohort.
The SA variant was 1% of patents ie 4 people in total in the unvaccinated population - so very small numbers. If Pfizer is 5% ineffective against Covid in general ie 95% effective (seems to be the consensus at the moment) that would mean is nearer 40% ineffective against SA (probably an over estimate) so vaccine effectiveness against inaction is only about 60% effective, probably high enough for getting population immunity eventually. I would treat this as a crude guess as there is very little quantitative data published you only needed one or two less people in the study to increase the vaccine effectiveness to 80% or more, remember to get 400 cases of Covid in vaccines people they would have needed 20 times as many people to get their 400 cases and they may have stubled accross a gropu who had come back from SA. We need to be careful not to read too much into the data. Your can see where the 8x number came from, but it could be much less. There were some reports that the AZ vaccine is more effective than Pfizer against the SA variant (maybe due to T cell response), but that could also be a statistical anomaly due to small numbers of cases.
SA variant is not as transmissible as the UK variant. This is highly significant as transmissibility increases morbidity as it leads to greater exponential growth of the disease. The Kent variant is much more transmissible, but UK data seems to show vaccine is highly effective against this variant. So while the SA variant may be less susceptible to vaccination, it is more susceptible to being supressed by all forms of action such as social distancing.
What has not appeared yet, is the hospitalisation and death rates from those vaccinated, I would expect those rates to be very low for the reasons given on the overall effect of vaccination.
If your question is - am I worried by this?
Personally not especially, its what we expected to happen. The UK is in a much better place than 12 months ago. The testing, social distancing / mask measures are well established and effective. The at long last government seems to be taking 'track-and-trace' for new variants as a national priority. We hare rolling out effective vaccines (if only 60+% effective against the SA variant) and new variant vaccines are being readied at speed for release in the autumn. Also the UK and many countries are now regularly sequencing the RNA of the virus from PCR tests (10% of all positive samples are sequenced in the UK). This provides an early warning for new variants and picked up the Kent variant very quickly in the autumn.
It is too early to say much yet on the SA variant, its likely to be one of many that we will face over the next few years.
Many methods to suppress the virus will need to continue for the foreseeable future - we cant rely on vaccines alone. Once infection is at a low level the vaccine is pushing down on a low number. If we let the virus spread then the vaccine has more of an up-hill effect. So lockdown can be safely eased as we have many measures to control covid and lead relatively normal lives. Lockdown is a last resort when you lose control of it through these 'ordinary every days measures.
Opening up of schools this time round has gone well in the UK, with infection rates remaining low and stable. Israel has shown that you can successfully re-open an economy once infection levels are down and vaccination is well established ie >50% of the population. (Cf Chile where they opened up too early). Furthermore if a new variant appears we know how to lockdown if needed to supress it.
Not until the virus is supressed worldwide will be fully in the clear, so for the next few years we need to be vigilant, but maybe 'keep calm and carry on' until we fully suppress the virus globally is the motto.
