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, we have one medium level county: Apache.

Low level counties are Clark, Cochise, Coconino, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, 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.

State of the virus

Update for March 31

• Reports of new coronavirus cases in the United States are still declining, though the pace of improvement has slowed significantly.

• More than a dozen states have seen cases increase over the past two weeks, including the majority of the Northeast. In New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, cases are up by more than 30 percent.

• Still, many states continue to see sustained declines, and cases remain at their lowest levels nationally since last July.

• Coronavirus hospitalizations also continue to fall. In the past two weeks, hospitalizations have decreased by 33 percent to around 17,000 per day.

• Around 700 deaths are currently being reported each day, the lowest daily average since August 2021. More than 975,000 deaths have been attributed to Covid-19 in the United States.