ALBANY COUNTY — On Sept. 20, the Biden administration announced it would once again set up a system so that free at-home tests for COVID-19 can be delivered through the United States Postal Service.

Starting on Monday, households can order up to four free tests by going online to covidtests.gov.

The original program was launched near the start of 2022 as the Omicron variant caused infections to soar.

When the public health emergency in the United States ended in May, Medicare coverage for the tests ended. Also private insurers were no longer required to cover eight at-home tests per month.

Viral infections often increase in the cold months and recently there has been an uptick in hospitalizations from COVID-19 although it is nowhere near the surge caused by Omicron or before vaccinations were available.

Albany County, based on the most recent data, posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, through Sept. 9, is still considered “low” for hospital admissions as are most of the counties in New York state and the nation.

Albany County had 36 hospital admissions of patients with confirmed COVID cases, up 24.1 percent from the previous week. This is 7.3 hospitalizations per 100,000 of population; the CDC defines “low” as less than 10.0 per 100,000.

However, seven counties north of Albany County are now designated as “medium,” meaning 10.0 to 19.9 per 100,000 with confirmed COVID cases. In neighboring Saratoga County, for example, there were 57 confirmed COVID hospital admissions, a 185-percent increase from the week prior. Saratoga County had 11.1 admissions per 100,000.

The CDC has not designated any counties in the state as having “high” — 20 or more per 100,000 — COVID hospital admissions.

At the same time, the CDC is urging everyone six months or older to get the new COVID shots made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both messenger RNA vaccines. The new vaccine was formulated to combat recent strains, similar to annual flu shots.

The updated COVID-19 vaccines are “formulated to more closely target currently circulating variants and to provide better protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said the Food and Drug Administration in approving the new shots.