In contrast to growing case numbers, COVID-19 deaths are much lower than during the earlier peak in case numbers. Why is that so?

In part, this is the consequence of having better statistics of the number of infected people, whereas in the very beginning what was getting noticed was largely the people needing hospitalization, so the illness was assumed to be much more serious and much more lethal because the number of asymptomatic and mild cases was underreported. Now you are getting more accurate assessments of the number who are exposed and contract at least a viral presence within the body, but the major factor here, that there are so many individuals with mild or even no symptoms as well as a lower percent mortality, is a consequence of divine intervention to help protect people at least to some extent from the ravages of the virus. So this shift over time in apparent seriousness is real and is due to divine assistance, not that it was a misreading of the seriousness of the illness initially and an overestimate of severity—you are being blessed with divine grace.