A More Infectious Virus Could Lead to Many More Deaths

Simplified, hypothetical scenario showing the number of new deaths every six days from three different virus strains, assuming each strain started from ten thousand infections in an unvaccinated population

Notes: The line for the original strain assumes a fatality risk of 0.8% and that each infected person transmits the virus to 1.1 other people on average. Fatality risk and transmissibility would both be lower in a vaccinated population.
Source: Adam Kucharski, Associate Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.