Omicron, the highly contagious coronavirus variant sweeping across the country, is driving the daily American death toll higher than during last fall's delta wave, with deaths likely to keep rising for days or even weeks.

The seven-day rolling average for daily new COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. has been climbing since mid-November, reaching 2,267 on Thursday and surpassing a September peak of 2,100 when delta was the dominant variant.

Now omicron is estimated to account for nearly all the virus circulating in the nation. And even though it causes less severe disease for most people, the fact that it is more transmissible means more people are falling ill and dying.

“Omicron will push us over a million deaths,” said Andrew Noymer, a public health professor at the University of California, Irvine. “That will cause a lot of soul searching. There will be a lot of discussion about what we could have done differently, how many of the deaths were preventable.”

The average daily death toll is now at the same level as last February, when the country was slowly coming off its all-time high of 3,300 a day.

More Americans are taking precautionary measures against the virus than before the omicron surge, according to a AP-NORC poll this week. But many people, fatigued by crisis, are returning to some level of normality with hopes that vaccinations or prior infections will protect them.

Omicron symptoms are often milder, and some infected people show none, researchers agree. But like the flu, it can be deadly, especially for people who are older, have other health problems or who are unvaccinated.

“Importantly, ‘milder’ does not mean ‘mild,’” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said this week during a White House briefing.

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BEIJING (AP) — Chinese are traveling to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year, the country’s biggest family holiday, despite a government plea to stay where they are as Beijing tries to contain coronavirus outbreaks.

The holiday, which starts with Chinese New Year's Eve on Monday, usually is the biggest annual movement of humanity as hundreds of millions of people who migrated for work visit their parents and sometimes spouses and children they left behind or travel abroad.

Some 260 million people traveled in the 10 says since the holiday rush started Jan. 17, less than before the pandemic but up 46% over last year, official data shows. The government forecasts a total of 1.2 billion trips during the holiday season, up 36% from a year ago.

“I know we are encouraged to spend the New Year in Beijing, but I haven’t been back home for three years,” said Wang Yilei, whose hometown is Tangshan, east of the capital. “My parents are getting old and they are looking forward to seeing me.”

The Chinese capital, Beijing, is tightening controls to contain coronavirus outbreaks ahead of next week's opening of the Winter Olympics, a high-profile prestige event.

China's infection numbers are modest compared with India, South Korea and some other countries. But they challenge Beijing's “zero tolerance” strategy that aims to keep the virus out of China by isolating every infected person.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Argentine singer-songwriter Diego Verdaguer, whose romantic hits such as “Corazón de papel,” “Yo te amo” and “Volveré” sold almost 50 million copies, has died of complications from COVID-19, his family said Friday. He was 70.

The naturalized Mexican-Argentine musician, who was married to singer Amanda Miguel, died Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles, his daughter Ana Victoria said in a statement released by Diam Music, Verdaguer’s record company.

“With absolute sadness, I regret to inform his fans and friends that today my father left his beautiful body to continue his path and creativity in another form of eternal life,” said his daughter. “My mother, I and the whole family are immersed in this pain, so we appreciate your understanding in these difficult times.”

The statement was also published on the Twitter account of Amanda Miguel, who wrote ”#restinpeace” along with the emojis of a pair of her hands palm to palm and a white heart.”

Verdaguer dedicated his last blog post to his wife, writing: “I will never tire of dedicating this song to you. You are the thief who stole my heart!” he wrote, referring to his song “Thief.”

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MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities on Friday reported over 98,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases, but the Kremlin said the actual number is likely to be much greater as the highly contagious omicron variant continues to rage through the vast country.

Russia's state coronavirus task force registered 98,040 new infections tallied over the past 24 hours — another all-time high for the country that in recent weeks has faced its biggest surge of contagions in the pandemic.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “it is obvious that this number is higher and possibly much higher,” because “many people don't get tested” and have no symptoms. Peskov noted that Russia's numbers are “so far lower than in Western European countries, than in the U.S., so one can't rule out that they will grow further.”

The Kremlin spokesman also admitted that a lot of people in the presidential administration have gotten infected with the virus. “The vast majority continue to work from home after having isolated themselves,” Peskov said. “This explosive contagiousness of the omicron, it demonstrates itself in full.”

Coronavirus infections in Russia started to soar nearly three weeks ago, with daily tallies of new cases spiking from about 15,000 on Jan. 10 to almost 100,000 on Friday. Russian authorities, however, have avoided imposing any major restrictions to stem the surge, saying the health system has been coping with the influx of patients.

Peskov said Friday there was no point in imposing “excessive restrictions" and cited “the world's experience.”

Earlier this month, parliament indefinitely postponed introducing restrictions on the unvaccinated that would have proven unpopular among vaccine-hesitant Russians. And this week health officials cut the required isolation period for those who came in contact with COVID-19 patients from 14 days to seven without offering any explanation for the move.

Russia had only one national lockdown, in 2020, although many Russians were ordered to stay off work for a week in October 2021 amid a jump in reported cases and deaths.