COVID-19 community levels: 5/19/2022
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 13
The virus continues to spread at an alarming pace nationwide, with daily reports of new cases increasing threefold since the start of April.
Cases are rising in nearly every U.S. state, but the Northeast and Midwest have been especially hard hit. In much of those two regions, daily case reports are higher today than they were at the peak of last summer's Delta surge.
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 cases currently announced each day likely capture only a portion of the true toll.
Hospitalizations are also increasing, though more modestly than known cases. The number of patients in American hospitals with coronavirus has risen by 20 percent in the past two weeks, but it remains at just over 20,000 nationwide — far lower than the levels seen in any prior surge.
The coronavirus has claimed nearly one million lives in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, a once-unimaginable loss. More than 300 deaths are being announced each day on average, far fewer than at the height of the Omicron surge several months ago, when more than 2,600 deaths were being reported daily.