The second wave is causing many fewer deaths than the first wave because of three factors.
1. The virus itself has mutated to become more infectious but less deadly. Some say this alone has reduced the mortality by about a third.
2. We humans have figured out how to treat this new infection much better than before. Just the drug dexamethasone alone has reduced mortality by 30% in patients with COVID requiring admission to hospital. Never mind all the other changes in management since the pandemic started.
3. A larger proportion of people affected in the second wave are younger. This may be because the elderly are now clearly taking precautions to reduce their risk of getting infected. We know the mortality rate for younger people affected by COVID is much, much lower than for the elderly.
Add all that up and the much lower death rate is no surprise.
