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, La Paz, Navajo, and Yuma.

Medium level: Cochise, Gila, Graham, Mohave, Pinal, and Santa Cruz.

Low level: Clark, Coconino, Greenlee, Maricopa, Pima, Yavapai, 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 August 19

• Known daily cases continue to fall and are now below 100,000 per day nationally, 19 percent lower than two weeks ago. Cases are declining in almost every state.

• The percentage of P.C.R. tests to return positive remains high at 16 percent, a sign that fewer infections are being officially recorded compared with earlier waves.

• The number of hospitalized patients with Covid is declining, down more than 6 percent from the recent peak in late July. But about half of states are still seeing increasing or flat hospitalization numbers, meaning they may not yet have turned the corner.

• The number of Covid patients hospitalized, and especially those in I.C.U.s, is much lower than at this point last year during the Delta wave. A combination of the Omicron variants being less severe and the better availability of treatments is reducing the number of severe outcomes.

• Fewer than 500 coronavirus deaths are currently announced each day, a decrease of 3 percent over the past two weeks.