COVID-19 community levels: 12/22/2022

Note: our updates can be a week behind due to our news cycle overlapping with Thursday updates. View the latest CDC and NYTimes updates here.

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, there are no longer any low-level counties in our synod.

High level counties are Gila, Greenlee, La Paz, Mohave, Navajo, Santa Cruz, and Yuma.

Medium level counties include Apache, Clark, Cochise, Coconino, Graham, Maricopa, Nye, Pima, Pinal, Washington, Yavapai, and Yuma.

At all levels including the low level, prevention steps include:

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 December 15

  • By any metric, conditions have worsened markedly at the national level this month. Reported cases and hospitalizations have seen particularly large increases, with both figures more than 40 percent higher in recent days than they were at Thanksgiving.

  • Most states have seen cases and hospitalizations increase in the past two weeks, and population centers like New York City and Los Angeles continue to be troubling hotspots.

  • However, there are some promising signs, especially in the Southwest. The region was experiencing the worst outbreak in the country for most of November, but conditions there are now improving. Though cases remain high in Arizona and New Mexico, they have fallen by more than 10 percent over the past two weeks, and in New Mexico, hospitalizations have decreased by more than 20 percent.

News, Grand Canyon SynodBrian FlatgardCoronavirusComment