Before revision:  Such a model can explain the nontrivial empirics: if mixing is sufficiently homophilic, an increase in the share of corona sceptics can cause an increase in the number of deaths without increasing the number of reported infections.
After revision:  Such a model can explain the puzzling empirics: if mixing is sufficiently homophilic, an increase in the share of corona sceptics can cause an increase in the number of deaths without increasing the number of reported infections.