“Even if we have a future wave where we are told that this version of the virus might be milder on a person-to-person basis, we cannot afford to misinterpret that as meaning it can’t be extremely detrimental.'
first emerged last November, many doctors, researchers and scientists hoped that the new strain — while more transmissible — would cause fewer deaths., it appeared to cause less severe disease.
“Even if we have a future wave where we are told that this version of the virus might be milder on a person-to-person basis, we cannot afford to misinterpret that as meaning it can’t be extremely detrimental,” Faust said. Excess deaths — how many more people died than would typically have been expected in a given timeframe — have been viewed as a more comprehensive measure of fatalities caused, either directly or indirectly, by the virus than looking at confirmed COVID-19 deaths alone.