COVID-19 community levels: 9/15/2022

COVID-19 Community Levels is a tool to help communities decide what prevention steps to take based on the latest data.

According to the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Levels, high level counties are only Apache.

Medium level: La Paz, and Yuma.

Low level: Clark, Coconino, Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, Navajo, Maricopa, Mohave, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Yavapai, and Washington.

At all levels including the low level, prevention steps include:

• Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines

• Get tested if you have symptoms

At the medium level, if you are at high risk for severe illness, talk to your healthcare provider about whether you need to wear a mask and take other precautions.

At the high level, wear a mask indoors in public. Additional precautions may be needed for people at high risk for severe illness.

Levels can be low, medium, or high and are determined by looking at hospital beds being used, hospital admissions, and the total number of new COVID-19 cases in an area.

State of the virus

Update for September 8

• Known coronavirus cases have fallen significantly in recent weeks, with the national average falling below 90,000 cases per day just before Labor Day.

• The holiday has skewed current figures somewhat, since many states reported delayed or incomplete data in the aftermath of the long weekend. Still, case counts are in far better shape today than a month ago, when nearly 120,000 cases were announced each day.

• Cases have decreased over the past two weeks in all but a handful of states. In the Northwest, Washington and Oregon have both seen cases fall by more than 20 percent.

• Hospitalizations have also seen sustained improvement. Fewer than 35,000 people are currently in American hospitals with the coronavirus each day, a decrease of 13 percent over the past two weeks.

• Data on new virus deaths is particularly volatile this week due to holiday reporting disruptions. Still, deaths today are far lower than they were a year ago, when the Delta variant was causing more than 1,500 deaths per day.