ALBANY COUNTY — In a three-step system, Albany County has moved this week from “low,” where it was ranked all summer, to “medium” for COVID-19 hospital admissions.

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

Just three other counties in New York — Fulton, Montgomery, and Rensselaer — are designated “medium” by  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on data through Sept. 23.

The rest of the state, like counties in most of the nation, are designated as “low” for hospitalizations.

A “low” level means fewer than 10 hospital admissions per 100,000 of population while “medium” is between 10.0 and 19.9, and “high” means there were for than 20 hospital admissions per 100,000 of population

Albany County in the past week had 53 new hospital admissions with confirmed cases of COVID-19, or 10.6 per 100,000, which is an increase of 29.3 percent from the week prior, according to the CDC.

The week before, Albany County had 36 hospital admissions of patients with confirmed COVID cases, up 24.1 percent from the previous week for 7.3 hospitalizations per 100,000 of population.

Since the system for recording positive COVID tests has fallen by the wayside, tracking hospitalizations and deaths becomes the method for charting the course of the virus.

February was the last time the number of new cases was this high in New York State, according to information, last updated on Sept. 21, reported by the state’s health department.

A graph on the department’s website shows that, while the dominant Omicron sublineage in February was XBB.1.5, at over 87 percent, the dominant sublineage now is XBB.1.9 at 55.5 percent. Nationwide, EG.5 leads the way at 29.4 percent.

For deaths, the CDC reports New York state, with data as of Sept. 28, had 3 percent of its deaths in the past week due to COVID-19, an increase of 11.1 percent from the week prior.

This groups New York with 14 other states — Washington and California on the West Coast; Texas, Minnesota, and Missouri in the center of the country; and Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida along the East Coast — that have had 2.0 to 3.9 percent of their deaths in the past week from COVID-19.

Only two states have a higher death rate: Tennessee at 4.1 percent and New Hampshire at 5.3 percent.

The great majority of states have had fewer than 2 percent of their deaths in the past week from COVID-19.

Free tests

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.

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.

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.