New figures show there was a surge in deaths from heart failure, lung disease and strokes in New Brunswick in 2021, as deaths from COVID-19 were also multiplying.

It’s important evidence the virus has been killing provincial residents in multiple ways, according to infectious disease epidemiologist and University of Toronto professor Colin Furness, although New Brunswick health officials still are reluctant to endorse that view.

“COVID causes vascular damage, and there’s a lot of vascular death,” Furness said in an interview about the new information on what killed so many New Brunswick residents in 2021.