# The Omicron Variant **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [November 29, 2021, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-omicron-variant/955134 "2021-11-29T13:54:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 126
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2021, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-omicron-variant/955134/126 "2021-12-19T08:31:43Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > They should be making plans based on the emerging data, rather than on theoretical models. Well, both actually. Seeing as you cannot be certain that the conditions that apply to the spread in SA will apply eslewhere. In other waves we’ve had ostensibly similar countries with similar restrictions see very diferent rates of infection for reasons that are very diffucult to unpick. I repeat what I wrote previously. > [@Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Thread - 2021 Breaking News](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2021-breaking-news/929428/3279): > > Different countries, different demographics, different social interactions, different accommodation, different infection profiles, different behaviours. You can’t directly compare SA with the UK. > > Even if it is less severe (still not certain) you can get into health care supply issues very quickly indeed. > Because of the speed of transmission you cannot wait for certainty of severity to act. > > Simple maths, if you have ten times the number of infections for a disease that is only a third as likely to put you in hospital but those hospitalisations are compressed into a very short period of time, you have problems. So in the case of this variant we have definite evidence to point to massively higher transmission rates right now. We _don’t_ have solid evidence yet that it is less severe. We cannot be certain that the path of the disease elsewhere will mirror what has happened in SA. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-omicron-variant/955134)._