Germany reported 299 deaths the other day. If I'm not mistaken, that's bigger than any daily total we've reported since the spring. And while they're imposing some restrictions they remain largely open for now. They also reported over 60,000 Covid cases yesterday too - presumably from fewer tests than we do so God only knows what the true figure is, plus the case numbers don't appear to have even peaked yet (meaning death numbers certainly won't have either) and as with many other European countries they seem to still be rising exponentially (one of your favourite words!). Despite all that, they've not gone into lockdown yet and I think they'd be loathe to impose one, although the way things are going that might actually have to be a consideration.
In contrast to that, it can be reasonably argued that we ARE meandering away with case numbers falling and rising but whichever direction they're going in, it's not been anything like exponential and we still haven't touched the daily case numbers that were being recorded around the time that all restrictions were lifted in July. Why the trend is different over here compared to what's happening on much of the continent now, I've no idea, especially as many of those countries are a lot stricter regarding mask wearing/needing Covid passports to get into bars and restaurants, etc, but I wouldn't mind betting that a larger percentage of UK citizens have a level of immunity through either having had Covid/having been vaccinated than pretty much every other country in Europe and that's why our trend is different to what we're seeing across the continent.
www.forbes.com