> We would have seen a higher death rate if the virus was here earlier.

> What if this is already the "second wave". Something with lower symptoms wouldn't have warranted checking for a new strain, complications and deaths would fit into the normal distribution of last fall's flu season with no outlier spikes.

I think you are misunderstanding what wave means here. It means an earlier not as deadly strain/conditions had already occurred, just like in the Spanish Flu in the spring versus the fall deadly resurgance, but at lower orders of magnitude. The strain itself doesn't have to be different if the co-morbidities were different - such as different opportunistic viruses or bacterias being present.