Omicron has still not made an appearance in Alabama — yet. But the delta variant of the COVID virus is going strong, and new cases are increasing after a three-month downtrend.

In BirminghamWatch’s periodic analysis of the spread of COVID through Alabama, the number of daily new cases has nearly doubled over the past 10 days, and hospitalizations also have ticked upward, though not by much.

The increases have moved Alabama back into the substantial risk category, the highest of four categories used to classify community transmission of COVID, according to information from the Alabama Department of Public Health. The virus had backed off enough that the state was almost into the low risk category one month ago.

The 7-day moving average of new COVID cases stands at 511.17 per day as of Thursday, up from 352.86 a week beforehand. The average set a recent low of 283 per day on Nov. 30, and today’s reading is a hike of slightly more than 80% from that low.

The per-capita rate has also jumped to 10.17 new daily cases per 100,000 inhabitants. That measurement is what put Alabama in the substantial risk category. The positivity rate, which measures the percentage of COVID tests that return a positive result, has increased to 5.4% statewide.

The longer-term 14-day average of new cases has increased as well, but at a much slower rate than the 7-day mark, partly because the 14-day average did not fall as sharply to begin with. Thursday’s average came in at 432.21 cases per day, up from 396.64 a week ago.

In total, 850,645 cases of COVID have been reported since pandemic records began on March 13, 2020.

Deaths attributed to the virus increased slightly over the previous seven days, in part because fatalities that were not reported over the Thanksgiving holidays have now worked their way into the system. But since then, the 7-day average of deaths has fallen back to levels seen just before Thanksgiving. On Thursday, the 7-day average of deaths per day stood at 6.57 (46 total deaths for the week), compared to 6.0 on Nov. 2.

The statewide COVID death toll is up to 16,203 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Hospitalization numbers are staying relatively steady, with 334 beds occupied by COVID patients compared to 331 a week ago.

In the Birmingham metro area, only Walker County has registered a high community transmission level this week, due to a high per-capita caseload. All other metro counties registered either moderate or substantial levels of both positivity rates and new cases per capita.

Jefferson County reported a positivity rate of 3.4%, and just one death due to COVID in the past week. It is categorized as a moderate risk for coronavirus.

The county death toll reached 2,000 on Thanksgiving Day, but the county has tallied only three fatalities since. There have been 273 new cases of the virus in the week ending Wednesday.

While Alabama as a whole is still recording fairly low levels of new cases, almost all of which are from the delta variant, other areas of the United States are seeing much higher infection levels and the hot spots are moving around the country. UAB epidemiologist Dr. Suzanne Judd said in a press conference Monday that she is concerned about rising levels working their way southward from the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions, with Alabama next in the path of the spread if trends continue.

Tennessee is reporting new-case averages at roughly three times Alabama’s levels. And just to the north of the Volunteer State, Kentucky’s averages are nearly six times that of Alabama.

Health officials continue to quickly study the spread of the new omicron variant, which had infected patients in 19 states including Georgia, Mississippi and Florida as of Wednesday. However, the new variant has yet to be found in tests of Alabama patients.

Judd said she believes that there are omicron cases in Alabama already, but they just haven’t been discovered yet in genomic testing.

Omicron is still spreading rapidly in the southern part of the African continent, where the countries of South Africa and Botswana are bearing the brunt of the new outbreak. But there’s encouraging news as well in early reports that show the symptoms of omicron are not as severe as other variants. National Public Radio reports that many of the cases in Africa are found only after people come to hospitals for other reasons, such as pregnancy or scheduled surgery.

BirminghamWatch uses data for its analyses provided by the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Alabama Hospital Association.