COVID-19 community levels: 5/12/2022
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, all of our synod’s counties are low level: Apache, 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 May 10
Reports of new coronavirus cases have doubled in the past month as Omicron subvariants have spread across the country.
Cases are increasing in all but seven states and territories, and in more than 10 states, the daily case average is twice as high today as it was two weeks ago. Some places, including Hawaii, Maine and Puerto Rico, have seen recent case counts approach or surpass the levels seen during last year's Delta surge.
Hospitalizations are also on the rise, driven primarily by increases on the East Coast. Just over 19,000 people are in American hospitals with the coronavirus each day, an increase of 20 percent from two weeks ago.
The full impact of this surge is believed to be even greater than these numbers suggest. Since many infections go uncounted in official case reports, the roughly 73,000 cases currently announced each day likely capture only a portion of the true toll.
Coronavirus deaths in the United States are expected to reach 1 million in the coming days, though daily death reports are currently low. Fewer than 400 deaths are being announced each day on average, down from more than 2,600 a day at the height of the Omicron surge.