'Troublemaker for the next surge': Top doctor warns of new COVID-19 virus killing the young in their thousands

As COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out around the world, a top doctor is warning of a new virus strain that is killing the young in their thousands.

Brazil is swamped by new virus cases, with a warning to Australia that this variant is far more dangerous than anything seen before.

The new variant has overwhelmed the country to the point gravediggers are exhuming old tombs to make space for the more than 300,000 dead.

"The entire country has no ICU beds left. The deaths are soaring exponentially … like through the roof," Dr Eric Liang Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist from Harvard, told 9News.

Dr Feigl-Ding was one of the first epidemiologists to raise the alarm that COVID-19 was heading towards a pandemic in January 2020.

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