COVID-19 community levels: 3/9/2023

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.

Other than Apache County, which is at a medium level, all of our synod’s counties are at at low levels: Clark, Cochise, Coconino, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Maricopa, Mohave, Navajo, Nye, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, 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.

Update for March 2

  • Cases and hospitalizations have both declined nationally in the past two weeks, and both metrics are at their lowest point since October.

  • A slate of improvements in the populous Northeast is one factor driving this trend. In Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York, cases have fallen by at least 20 percent since mid-February, and hospitalizations have decreased by at least 10 percent.

  • Reported death figures were artificially low for much of last month due to delays in processing data from a C.D.C. source. The latest data includes deaths since the start of the year and shows that at least 25,000 people have died so far in 2023.

News, Grand Canyon SynodBrian FlatgardCoronavirusComment