  We demonstrate that the strict upper bounds on the energy scale of inflation
and on the tensor-to-scalar ratio can be somewhat relaxed if we assume that -
after an initial period of slow rolling when scales probed today in CMB
experiments exit the Hubble radius - the equation of state of the background
changes to correspond to an almost marginally accelerating universe.
Constructing an actual model in which this happens appears, however, to be
unnatural.
