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, Apache, Clark, and Navajo are at high levels.

Medium levels counties are now: Cochise, Coconino, Gila, Greenlee, Maricopa, Mohave, Pima, and Washington.

Low level counties remain in Graham, La Paz, Pinal, Santa Cruz, 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 June 17

• Roughly 100,000 cases are currently announced each day in the U.S., a figure that has stayed flat for the month of June.

• Cases are declining in roughly half the states, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. In the past two weeks, parts of New England have seen cases fall by 30 percent or more.

• In the South and West, however, cases and hospitalizations are increasing substantially. Daily new infections have nearly doubled this month in Arkansas and Kentucky, and in Wyoming, they are four times as high as they were two weeks ago.

• More than 30,000 people are hospitalized nationwide with the coronavirus, a modest increase from the start of the month. Hospitalizations are decreasing in more than a dozen states, but increases in such populous states as California and Florida have led to continued growth at the national level.

• Fatality data has been volatile in recent weeks because of delays in reporting after Memorial Day. Still, reports of new deaths remain low. Fewer than 350 deaths are being reported each day, down from more than 2,600 a day at the height of the Omicron surge.