We were surprised. We were scratching our heads. Something of this magnitude is really out of the ordinary.

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We really don't know -- we can't pin it down.

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The trends in age-adjusted death rates we expected because we've been seeing an increase in life expectancy for some years now.

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Older folks who might otherwise have left us decided to hang on to life a little longer.

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The most striking aspect of the data this year was the intensity or volume of the decreases. This is the largest single-year decrease in the raw numbers of deaths that we've seen since the 1940s.

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