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.

All of our synod’s counties are at at low levels: Apache, Clark, Cochise, Coconino, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Nye, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, Washington, Yavapai, 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.

Update for February 17

• Reported cases are declining nationally, as they have been since the start of the year. The pace of that decrease, though, has slowed in recent days, driven by rising cases in about half of all states.

• In Western states like Montana and Wyoming, cases have increased by as much as 55 percent in the past two weeks. Hospitalizations are also increasing in many parts of the West, and have leveled off nationwide.

• Deaths remain persistently high. On average, around 3,000 people are dying of Covid in the U.S. each week.

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.