This Explore step is about understanding that the system can already be changing while infectiousness is not yet fully visible in the chart.

SEIR adds a hidden exposed phase. That is why the visible infection peak can arrive later than the internal build-up of the wave.

If you can explain why the visible infection peak comes later than the exposed build-up, then this Explore step has already done important work.

Read each row as a pair. Duration changes γ, latency changes σ, and mitigation changes β while R₀ stays in the background as a fixed reference.

That is the whole didactic point of this version: separate delay from damping. Latency explains why yellow can peak earlier; mitigation explains why the later visible red wave can still become flatter.