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, all synod counties are low level: Apache, Clark, Coconino, Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Yavapai, Washington, and Yuma.

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 October 6

• Conditions continue to improve nationally, with reported cases at their lowest point since April and hospitalizations below 30,000 for the first time since June.

• Cases ticked up slightly in the Northeast early in September, and they are still rising in some states. But they have already begun to fall again in New Jersey and New York. That trend, coupled with stable test positivity rates, suggests that the region's outbreak will likely remain mild.

• Deaths remain troublingly high, but they are experiencing their first sustained decline in several months. The number of deaths has fallen by 8 percent in the past two weeks, to just under 400 per day.