Throughout this pandemic, deaths have tracked cases with a very slight delay(a week - 10 days at most), in the july surge down south cases tripled yet deaths only went up about 40%(then dropped). This latest increase is largely testing related, will deaths rise - a bit, but on a national level it's unlikely to look anything like it did in the spring, or even summer.
Much of these latest surges are related to colleges and grade schools reopening, look at sweden, they never shut their schools, many of their schoolkids and young adults no doubt had it back then and they're not spreading it now. Lockdowns and shutdowns dont work, in the spring we didn't know that, that was a mistake, we shouldn't make another one.