COVID-19 case counts plummeted following a winter marked by the highest case counts since the pandemic began. Federal, state, and local governments eased required prevention measures and shifted how they monitored the virus. Hawaii became the last state to remove its indoor mask mandate in late March. Daily case counts are nearly 96% below all-time highs in January 2022. The latest average daily case count is at 27,000, nearly a fourth of the 104,400 cases per day since the pandemic was declared in March 2020.
Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has yet to declare the pandemic over. The agency introduced a new metric to measure the severity and prevalence of COVID-19 at the county level. Known as COVID-19 community levels, the measure relies less heavily on case counts — which are less relevant with the rise of in-home testing — and more on hospitalization metrics.
Community levels are a three-tiered metric to offer guidance at the county level.
