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, high level counties are Apache, Clark, Coconino, Gila, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Pinal, Yavapai and Yuma.

Medium level: Cochise, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Santa Cruz and Washington.

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 July 28

• Known daily case counts have seen little change in the past two weeks, continuing at an average of roughly 130,000 new cases reported each day.

• This figure is certain to be an undercount, given the popularity of home tests that are not included in official data. But, while these case numbers do not capture the full scope of the current outbreak, they do — like some other data points — suggest a relatively steady pace in recent days.

• Cases are increasing modestly in about half of states and are decreasing modestly in the other half.

• Test positivity, like case data, has been largely unchanged since mid-month nationwide.

• Hospitalizations continue to increase, as they have through the summer, but they remain well below the peaks reached in previous surges. Nationwide, around 43,000 people are hospitalized with the coronavirus on an average day.

• The number of virus deaths announced each day is higher now than it was in early July, but it has held fairly steady in recent weeks at around 440 fatalities per day.