By MATTHEW DALY and CATHY BUSSEWITZ

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Russia has intensified its war on Ukraine, killing civilians and triggering a mass refugee crisis, some U.S. officials across the political spectrum have called for a ban on imports of Russian fuel. Such a ban, they say, would be the best — perhaps only — way to force Moscow to pull back.

A full embargo would be most effective if it included European allies, which are also desperate to stop the violence in Ukraine and the danger Moscow poses to the continent. Yet it’s far from clear that Europe would take part in a total embargo.

Unlike the United States, Europe is deeply reliant on energy it imports from Russia. While the U.S. could replace the relatively small amount of fuel it receives from Moscow, Europe could not, at least not anytime soon.

What’s more, any curbs on Russian oil exports would send already skyrocketing oil and gasoline prices ever higher on both continents and further squeeze consumers, businesses, financial markets and the global economy.

Here is a deeper look:

WILL THERE BE A BAN ON RUSSIAN OIL?

Amid rising gasoline prices in the U.S. — the average price has topped $4 a gallon for the first time since 2008 — the Biden administration faces growing pressure to impose further sanctions on Russia, including a ban on oil imports. No decision has yet been made.

For now, a broad U.S.-European ban appears elusive. On Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made clear that his country, Europe’s single-largest consumer of Russian energy, has no plans to join in any ban. In response, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman hinted that the U.S. could act alone or with a smaller group of allies.

“We have not been completely identical on all of the sanctions,” Sherman said. “Not every country has done exactly the same thing, but we have all reached a threshold that is necessary to impose the severe costs that we have all agreed to.”

Though U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has raised the possibility of a ban on imported Russian oil, Sherman noted, “he also said that we have to maintain a supply of oil,” perhaps through other means, to stabilize prices.

Even if a ban were enacted, the Biden administration and Congress “remain laser-focused on bringing down the higher energy costs for American families and our partners stemming from Putin’s invasion,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

Pelosi, who has expressed support for a U.S. ban on Russian oil, nevertheless also cited Biden’s action in leading U.S. allies to release 60 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves, including 30 million barrels from U.S. reserves, to try to stabilize global markets.

WHAT HAPPENS IF THE U.S. ACTS ALONE?

If the U.S. alone were to ban imports of Russian oil and refined products, the impact on Moscow would likely be minimal. The United States imports a small share of Russia’s oil exports and doesn’t buy any of Moscow’s natural gas.

The United States imports about 100,000 barrels a day from Russia, only about 5% of Russia’s crude oil exports, according to Rystad Energy. Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia.

The U.S. could replace Russian crude with imports from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. For its part, Russia might find alternative buyers for that fuel, perhaps in China or India. Such a step “would introduce massive inefficiency in the market,” which escalates prices, said Claudio Galimberti, senior vice president of analysis at Rystad Energy.

Yet if Russia were shut off from the global market, Galimberti said, rogue countries such as Iran and Venezuela might be “welcomed back” as sources of oil. Such additional sources could, in turn, potentially stabilize prices.

A team of Biden administration officials were in Venezuela over the weekend to discuss energy and other issues, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. Officials discussed “a range of issues, including certainly energy security,″ Psaki said.

HOW COULD A RUSSIAN OIL BAN AFFECT PRICES?

A month ago, oil was selling for about $90 a barrel. Now, prices are surging past $120 a barrel as buyers shun Russian crude, with many refiners fearing that sanctions could be imposed in the future. They worry about being left with oil they couldn’t resell as gasoline if sanctions were imposed in the near future.

Shell said Tuesday that it would stop buying Russian oil and natural gas and shut down its service stations, aviation fuels and other operations there, days after Ukraine’s foreign minister criticized the energy giant for continuing to buy Russian oil.

Energy analysts warn that prices could go as high to $160 or even $200 a barrel for crude oil if oil sanctions are imposed by the West or if buyers continue shunning Russian crude.

Oil prices that high could send an average gallon of U.S. gasoline past $5 a gallon, a scenario that Biden and other political figures are desperate to avoid.

ARE RUSSIAN IMPORTS ALREADY FALLING?

The U.S. oil industry has said it shares the goal of reducing reliance on foreign energy sources and is committed to working with the Biden administration and Congress. Even without sanctions, some U.S. refiners have severed contracts with Russian companies. Imports of Russian crude oil and products have tumbled.

“Our industry has taken significant and meaningful steps to unwind relationships” with Russia and voluntarily limit Russian imports, said Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s largest lobbying group.

Preliminary data from the U.S. Energy Department shows imports of Russian crude dropped to zero in the last week in February.

The petroleum institute hasn’t taken a formal stance on legislation to ban Russian oil imports. But it says it would comply with any restrictions imposed.

WILL EUROPE GO ALONG?

A ban on Russian oil and natural gas would be painful for Europe. Russia provides about 40% of Europe’s natural gas for home heating, electricity and industry uses and about a quarter of Europe’s oil. European officials are looking for ways to reduce their dependence, but it’s going to take time.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak underlined that urgency, saying Russia would have “every right” to halt natural gas shipments to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in retaliation for Germany halting the parallel Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was not yet operating. He added that “we have not taken this decision” and that “no one would benefit from this.” It was a change from earlier Russian assurances that they had no intention of cutting off gas to Europe.

Oil is easier to replace than natural gas. Other countries could increase production of oil and ship it to Europe. But much oil would have to be replaced, and this would drive up prices even more because the oil would likely have to travel farther.

Replacing the natural gas that Russia provides to Europe is likely impossible in the short term. Most of the natural gas Russia provides to Europe travels through pipelines. To replace it, Europe would mostly import liquefied natural gas, known as LNG. The continent doesn’t have enough pipelines to distribute gas from coastal import facilities to farther reaches of the continent.

In January, two-thirds of American LNG exports went to Europe. Some ships filled with LNG had been heading to Asia but turned around to go to Europe because buyers there offered to pay higher prices, according to S&P Global Platts.

While U.S. oil and gas producers could drill for more natural gas, its export facilities are already operating at capacity. Expanding those facilities would take years and billions of dollars.

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Bussewitz reported from New York. AP writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.

By DAVID RISING

BANGKOK (AP) — The official global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 6 million on Monday — underscoring that the pandemic, now entering its third year, is far from over.

The milestone, recorded by Johns Hopkins University, is the latest tragic reminder of the unrelenting nature of the pandemic even as people are shedding masks, travel is resuming and businesses are reopening around the globe.

Remote Pacific islands, whose isolation had protected them for more than two years, are just now grappling with their first outbreaks and deaths, fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant.

Hong Kong, which is seeing deaths soar, is testing its entire population of 7.5 million three times this month as it clings to mainland China’s “zero-COVID” strategy.

As death rates remain high in Poland, Hungary, Romania and other Eastern European countries, the region has seen more than 1.5 million refugees arrive from war-torn Ukraine, a country with poor vaccination coverage and high rates of cases and deaths.

And despite its wealth and vaccine availability, the United States is nearing 1 million reported deaths on its own.

Death rates worldwide are still highest among people unvaccinated against the virus, said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore’s medical school and co-chair of the Asia Pacific Immunization Coalition.

“This is a disease of the unvaccinated — look what is happening in Hong Kong right now, the health system is being overwhelmed,” said Pang, the former director of research policy and cooperation with the World Health Organization. “The large majority of the deaths and the severe cases are in the unvaccinated, vulnerable segment of the population.”

It took the world seven months to record its first million deaths from the virus after the pandemic began in early 2020. Four months later another million people had died, and 1 million have died every three months since, until the death toll hit 5 million at the end of October. Now it has reached 6 million — more than the populations of Berlin and Brussels combined, or the entire state of Maryland.

But despite the enormity of the figure, the world undoubtedly hit its 6 millionth death some time ago. Poor record-keeping and testing in many parts of the world has led to an undercount in coronavirus deaths, in addition to excess deaths related to the pandemic but not from actual COVID-19 infections, like people who died from preventable causes but could not receive treatment because hospitals were full.

Edouard Mathieu, head of data for the Our World in Data portal, said that — when countries’ excess mortality figures are studied — as many as nearly four times the reported death toll have likely died because of the pandemic.

An analysis of excess deaths by a team at The Economist estimates that the number of COVID-19 deaths is between 14.1 million and 23.8 million.

“Confirmed deaths represent a fraction of the true number of deaths due to COVID, mostly because of limited testing, and challenges in the attribution of the cause of death,” Mathieu told The Associated Press. “In some, mostly rich, countries that fraction is high and the official tally can be considered to be fairly accurate, but in others it is highly underestimated.”

The United States has the biggest official death toll in the world, but the numbers have been trending downward over the last month.

Lonnie Bailey lost his 17-year-old nephew, Carlos Nunez Jr., who contracted COVID-19 last April — the same month Kentucky opened his age group to vaccinations. The Louisville resident said the family is still suffering, including Carlos’ younger sibling, who had to be hospitalized himself and still has lingering symptoms. The aggressive reopening of the country has been jarring for them to witness.

“For us it is hard to let our guard down; it’s going to take a while for us to adjust,” Bailey said.

The world has seen more than 445 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and new weekly cases have been declining recently in all regions except for the Western Pacific, which includes China, Japan and South Korea, among others, the World Health Organization reported this week.

Although the overall figures in the Pacific islands seeing their first outbreaks are small compared to larger countries, they are significant among their tiny populations and threaten to overwhelm fragile health care systems.

“Given what we know about COVID … it’s likely to hit them for the next year or so at least,” said Katie Greenwood, head of the Red Cross Pacific delegation.

Tonga reported its first outbreak after the virus arrived with international aid vessels following the Jan. 15 eruption of a massive volcano, followed by a tsunami. It now has several hundred cases, but — with 66% of its population fully vaccinated — it has so far reported people suffering mostly mild symptoms and no deaths.

The Solomon Islands saw the first outbreak in January and now has thousands of cases and more than 100 deaths. The actual death toll is likely much higher, with the capital’s hospital overwhelmed and many dying at home, Greenwood said.

Only 12% of Solomon Islanders are fully vaccinated, though the outbreak has provided new impetus to the country’s vaccination campaign and 29% now have at least one shot.

Global vaccine disparity continues, with only 6.95% of people in low-income countries fully vaccinated, compared to more than 73% in high-income nations, according to Our World in Data.

In a good sign, at the end of last month Africa surpassed Europe in the number of doses administered daily, but only about 12.5% of its population has received two shots.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still pressing for more vaccines, though it has been a challenge. Some shipments arrive with little warning for countries’ health systems and others near the expiration date — forcing doses to be destroyed.

Eastern Europe has been particularly hard hit by the omicron variant, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new risk has emerged as hundreds of thousands of people flee to places like Poland on crowded trains. Health officials there have been offering free vaccinations to all refugees, but have not been making them test upon arrival or quarantine.

“This is really tragic because great stress has a very negative effect on natural immunity and increases the risk of infections,” said Anna Boron-Kaczmarska, a Polish infectious disease specialist. “They are in very high stress, being afraid for their lives, the lives of their children, they family members.”

Mexico has reported 300,000 deaths, but with little testing, a government analysis of death certificates puts the real number closer to 500,000. Still, four weeks of falling infection rates have left health officials optimistic.

In India, where the world was shocked by images of open-air pyres of bodies burned as crematoria were overwhelmed, the scars are fading as the number of new cases and deaths has slowed.

India has recorded more than 500,000 deaths, but experts believe its true toll is in the millions, primarily from the delta variant. Migrants from India’s vast hinterland are now returning to its megacities in search of jobs, and the streets are packed with traffic. Shopping malls have customers, albeit still masked, while schools and universities are welcoming students after a months-long gap.

In Britain, infections have fallen since an omicron-driven surge in December, but remain high. England has now lifted all restrictions, including mask mandates and the requirement that all who test positive isolate at home.

With about 250,000 reported deaths, the African continent’s smaller death toll is thought to stem from underreporting, as well as a generally younger and less mobile population.

“Africa is a big question mark for me, because it has been relatively spared from the worst so far, but it could just be a time bomb,” Pang said, noting its low vaccination rates.

In South Africa, Soweto resident Thoko Dube said she received news of the deaths of two family members on the same day in January 2021 — a month before the country received its first vaccines.

It has been difficult, but “the family is coping,” she said. “We have accepted it because it has been happening to other families.”

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AP journalists Jill Lawless in London, Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi, Cara Anna in Nairobi, Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Fabiola Sanchez in Mexico City, and Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, contributed to this story.

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Follow David Rising on Twitter @davidrising

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Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added a robust 678,000 jobs in February, another gain that underscored the economy’s solid health as the omicron wave fades and more Americans venture out to spend at restaurants, shops and hotels despite surging inflation.

The Labor Department’s report Friday also showed that the unemployment rate dropped from 4% to a low 3.8%, extending a sharp decline in joblessness as the economy has rebounded from the pandemic recession.

The latest jobs data follows recent reports that have shown an economy maintaining strength as new COVID infections have plummeted since late January. Consumer spending has risen, spurred by higher wages and savings. Restaurant traffic has regained pre-pandemic levels, hotel reservations are up and far more Americans are flying than at the height of omicron.

Friday’s hiring figures were collected before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sent oil prices surging and has escalated risks and uncertainties for economies in Europe and the rest of the world.

The report showed that average hourly pay in the United States barely rose last month but has increased 5.1% in the past year, a sign that companies feel compelled to raise wages to attract and keep workers. Many employers, in turn, have been raising prices to offset their higher labor costs, a process that has fueled inflation.

The strong hiring in February occurred across most of the economy, with restaurants, bars and hotels adding 79,000 jobs, construction 60,000 and transportation and warehousing 48,000. The economy still has 2.1 million fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic erupted two years ago this month, though the gap is closely fast.

After months of concerns about labor shortages holding back businesses, there were tentative signs last month that more people are taking jobs or looking for work. The number of people who said they avoided job hunting because they were concerned about COVID fell to 1.2 million in February, down 600,000 from January, when omicron was raging.

Yet consumer inflation has reached its highest level since 1982, squeezing America’s households and businesses, with price spikes especially high for such necessities as food, gasoline and rent. In response, the Federal Reserve is set to raise interest rates several times this year beginning later this month. Those increases will eventually mean higher borrowing rates for consumers and businesses, including for homes, autos and credit cards.

Chair Jerome Powell said this week that he plans to propose that the Fed raise its benchmark short-term rate by a quarter-point when it meets in about two weeks. Powell has acknowledged that high inflation has proved more persistent and has spread more broadly than he and many economists had expected.

The Fed chair cautioned that if inflation failed to ease later this year as he expects, he would consider carrying out half-point increases at future central bank meetings. Larger hikes would raise the risk of weakening the economy or even tipping it into recession.

Powell also warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will lead to higher prices for gas as well as for such other commodities as aluminum, wheat and corn, thereby keeping inflation higher than it would otherwise have been. Oil prices, which have been soaring since war began more than a week ago, are critically important to the global economy.

For now, though, despite high inflation, the rapid fading of the omicron variant is likely to accelerate the U.S. economy and job growth. A survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that Americans are now much less worried about COVID than they were in December and January. Mask mandates and other restrictions are ending. More companies are returning to pre-pandemic operations, including working in offices.

Data from the restaurant reservation software provider OpenTable showed that seated diners surpassed pre-pandemic levels late last month. And figures from the Transportation Security Administration reflected a sharp increase in the number of people willing to take airplane flights.

During the omicron wave, businesses barely wavered in their demand for workers. Job openings at the end of December reached near-record levels, with an average of 1.7 available positions for every unemployed person. Historically, there are usually more people out of work than there are jobs.

With many companies desperate for employees, layoffs have plunged. The number of people receiving unemployment aid fell two weeks ago to its lowest level since 1970.

Americans’ concerns about inflation have eroded their optimism about the economy. The Conference Board’s measure of consumer confidence slipped in February for a second straight month.

Still, other surveys show that Americans are increasingly satisfied with their own financial situations. And people clearly see that many jobs are available, the Conference Board’s survey shows.