My understanding (which could be wrong!) is that the current absolute death amounts are high, but the actual rate of deaths per-infection is low. This is becaus

My understanding (which could be wrong!) is that the current absolute death amounts are high, but the actual rate of deaths per-infection is low. This is because the trend in variants has (so far) been towards more-infectious but less-fatal, along with improved knowledge of treatments... so we have a vast number of people infected but they're mostly-surviving. Said deaths are also extremely focused in unvaccinated people, meaning that outside of the immunocompromised (whose situation sucks here), it's at least mostly people who chose the risk.