For the first time, two of the new cases are upstate — from Oneida County, near the center of New York.

 New York State’s total of the highly contagious new Omicron variant, thus far, is eight: Seven cases from New York City and one from Suffolk County on Long Island.

Dave A. Chokshi, the New York City’s health commissioner, said of the Omicron variant in New York State, “There is community spread.” The cases, he said, are not just from people traveling to Africa, where the Omicron variant was first reported, or to other locations where it has been identified.

 Only 16 percent of adult New Yorkers have gotten booster shots. Of New Yorkers age 65 and older, 37 percent have received booster shots. The shots are needed because COVID-19 vaccines lose effectiveness over time.

As hospitalization rates approach what they were last April, hospitals in target areas will have non-essential, non-urgent procedures limited. The Capital Region, with just 10 percent of its hospital beds available, is one of the state’s three worst regions. The other two are the Finger Lakes at 9 percent and Central New York at 8 percent.

Figures from a year ago — Oct. 24 to Nov. 24 — before the first vaccine was authorized, show better numbers in Albany County than the same time period this year. There are 1,000 more infections and two times the number of deaths, year over year.

Albany County suffered three COVID deaths this week: a man in his seventies died on Thursday, a man in his sixties died on Friday, and a woman in her nineties died on Saturday. Albany County’s COVID-19 death toll now stands at 439.

“We enter Thanksgiving week and yes, as Americans, we are thankful. We’re thankful to live in this great country and to live in this state. But with that gratitude comes a sense of responsibility to others….,” said Governor Kathy Hochul as she signed a bill on Saturday making the Nourish New York program permanent. “This war against poverty is going to continue until no child goes to bed in the State of New York with a hungry stomach, never again in our state.”

Boosters are recommended because the effectiveness of the vaccine wanes over time.

VOORHEESVILLE — Gail Brown is a catalyst.

She brings life to her community by pulling varied entities and people together to make things happen.

The longtime head of Youth and Family Services at the Voorheesville library, Brown has just been named Public Librarian of the Year by the New York State Library Association.