From Chris Godwin: I mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating: I know this sounds cold, but do you think that perhaps with regard to the stabilization of the death rate, we also may be seeing an effect due to the most vulnerable members of the “herd” be “culled” by previous waves of infection, especially the first wave? This would track with what we see in other species vis-a-vis these types of phenomena in the context of evolutionary biology, and I have no reason to believe that humans are any different in this way than are, e.g., reindeer. Thoughts on this?