The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 continues to climb in the weeks following the end-of-year holidays. Fatalities from the disease nationwide are currently 25% higher than at any other time during the coronavirus pandemic, according to The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the U.S. outbreak.

"For scale, COVID-19 deaths reported this week exceed the CDC's estimate of 22K flu-related deaths during the entire 2019-2020 season," The COVID Tracking Project wrote on Twitter Thursday.

There were 3,915 deaths from COVID-19 registered nationwide on Thursday, well above a seven-day average that continues to rise. However, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations were under the seven-day average on Thursday.

The one bit of good news highlighted by The COVID Tracking Project was that hospitalizations are leveling off. Still, there are 128,947 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States, much more than at any other time during the pandemic.

The COVID Tracking Project singled out Alabama, Arizona, California and Florida as particularly concerning locations right now. Arizona currently has the worst per-capita case numbers in the world, according to the project.

A newly identified variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 may have emerged in the U.S. in May and could be one of the predominant versions circulating now, researchers at Southern Illinois University found.

Just because a new variant has emerged doesn't mean it's inherently dangerous, experts cautioned. It’s unknown if this new U.S. variant is more transmissible and deadly, but scientists say they are monitoring and continuing to study newly emerging viral variants. On Wednesday, researchers at Ohio State reported two newly identified ones. On Thursday, researchers at Southern Illinois University said they also identified a new variant, which is likely the same as the two identified in Ohio.

Now, researchers at Southern Illinois University are sharing even more details about this U.S. variant, which they are calling 20C-US. Origins of this variant can be traced to May 2020 from a sample in Texas, they said.

The 20C-US variant appears to be widespread in the Upper Midwest and comprises roughly 50% of the samples in the U.S., said Keith T. Gagnon, coauthor of the study and associate professor at Southern Illinois University.

"Let’s not get overly excited -- but be diligent," Gagon said. "Here it was, underneath our noses, for months."

“It doesn't look like it’s going to get in the way of vaccines," Gagnon added. 

ABC News’ Sean Llewellyn, Eric Strauss and Sony Salzman contributed to this report.

Texas, home to about 29 million people, has become the first U.S. state to administer more than 1 million vaccine doses, Gov. Greg Abbott said.

Texas has 2,040,751 confirmed cases and at least 31,277 fatalities, according to real-time data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

Texas’ Harris County, home to Houston, ranks No. 5 in the country for the highest number of confirmed cases, behind Los Angeles County, California; Cook County, Illinois; Marciopa County, Arizona; and Miami-Dade County, Florida.

ABC News’ Gina Sunseri contributed to this report.

The United Kingdom will ban arrivals from several South and Central American countries beginning Friday, following evidence of a new variant of the novel coronavirus from Brazil, British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced Thursday.

The U.K. government will ban arrivals from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela, according to Shapps.

Travel from Portugal to the U.K. will also be suspended given its strong travel links with Brazil, Shapps said.

ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga declared a state of emergency in seven additional areas on Wednesday, as COVID-19 cases continued to climb.

The latest state of emergency was declared for the prefectures of Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto, Aichi, Gifu, Fukuoka, and Tochigi.

The move comes one week after Suga declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures due to rising infections and a growing death toll.

A state of emergency declaration gives the governors of those respective regions the authority to ask residents for cooperation in efforts to curb the spread of the virus. There are currently no legal ramifications for non-compliance.

Under the state of emergency, which takes immediate effect and is expected to end Feb. 7 for all 11 prefectures, Suga said governors will ask residents to refrain from dining out and to stay home after 8 p.m. unless for essential reasons. They will also ask companies to decrease the number of employees commuting to work by 70%.

Suga said bars and restaurants will be asked to stop serving alcohol by 7 p.m. and to close by 8 p.m. Governors may disclose the name of the businesses that don't comply, while those that do will be given 1.8 million Japanese yen ($17,000) per month.

Spectator events will be limited to an audience of 5,000 people. Schools will not be asked to close, according to Suga.

Suga's predecessor, Shinzo Abe, declared a nationwide state of emergency relatively early in the pandemic in April, which lasted for a month. At that time, residents were asked to reduce person-to-person contact by 80% and to practice "jishuku," or "self-restraint," by staying at home and closing non-essential businesses.

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare registered 4,521 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 as well as 51 additional deaths from the disease on Tuesday, bringing the country's cumulative total to 295,257 cases with at least 4,144 deaths.

ABC News' Anthony Trotter contributed to this report.