ATLANTA, GA – July 20, 2022 – The risk of people getting severely ill with COVID-19 is much lower because of the high levels of population immunity from both vaccinations and prior infection. However, some people are at a higher risk of severe illness if they are older, immunocompromised or have disabilities. And having the capacity for the healthcare system to take care of people in need especially during times of surges must be maintained. Therefore, the CDC has developed a guide to help people decide upon their community prevention strategies and individual behaviors to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This can decrease the number of severe illnesses and hospitalizations and enable hospitals to take care of people in need of help for COVID-19 and other health problems.
The COVID-19 community levels, described as low, medium and high, indicate how much virus is circulating in each county. The level is determined by using the new case rate, the new COVID-19 hospital admissions and the average percent of inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients from the previous 7 days. The case rate may be under-reported because many people test at home and do not report the results. For a community at a medium level, the CDC recommends wearing an effective well-fitting mask on public transportation, as an additional precaution to protect yourself and spread to others and in public indoor spaces for people at high risk for severe illness. For a community at high level, the CDC recommends wearing an effective well-fitting mask in all public indoor spaces including public transportation.
The weekly CDC Community Levels can be found on their website at www.cdc.gov.
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Contact: Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, healthyasheville@ashevillefm.org
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