COVID-19 community levels: 1/5/2023
Note: our updates can be a week behind due to our news cycle overlapping with Thursday updates. View the latest CDC and NYTimes updates here.
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, there are no longer any low-level counties in our synod.
Mohave is our synod’s sole high level county.
Medium level counties include Apache, Clark, Coconino, Gila, La Paz, Maricopa, Nye, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Washington, Yavapai, and Yuma.
Low level counties are Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, and Navajo.
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 December 30
Most coronavirus metrics have seen little change this week, likely because of the lull in data reporting that occurs around Christmas and New Year’s.
New Jersey and New York continue to see some of the country's worst per-capita case rates, and several Southern states — including Kentucky and South Carolina— are also in the midst of worsening conditions.
While most national data has been fairly flat in recent days, test positivity is rising sharply. This suggests that there are far more new cases circulating than what official reports show. Cases and hospitalizations may both increase next week when more regular reporting patterns resume.
How to read Covid data now
Higher test positivity rates are a sign that many infections are not reported — even if they are tested for at home. This results in a more severe undercount of cases. The number of hospitalized patients with Covid is a more reliable measure because testing is more consistent in hospitals. Read more about the data.