The two Northeast Ohio institutions studied variants and the original strain Author: Hope Sloop Updated: 7:19 PM EDT April 26, 2021 CLEVELAND — Editor's note: The video in the player above is from a story published on Feb. 22, 2021. New research from the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University has found that while newer strains and mutations of SARS-CoV-2 are often more contagious than the original COVID-19 strain, they may also be responsible for fewer hospitalizations and deaths. Scientists from both Northeast Ohio institutions tracked genome sequences for SARS-CoV-2 between March 11-April 22, 2020, recently found that clades, which are subgroups of an initial strain, were associated with a higher mortality rate than those of newer origin.