The duality of science:
The Norwegian study has been since peer-reviewed and published, but the Portuguese one hasn't. Same thing with this one showing non-VoCs and Alpha had the same mortality, also from Norway.
What about studies (pre-prints, mostly) showing the opposite? It could be that the ever-declining rate of detection past the summer of 2020 made some countries mistakenly believe VoCs were more deadly than they seemed. Since someplace like Norway lacked massive waves, it might have been more consistent with case detection.