United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County

Reporting of Aggregate Case and Death Count data was discontinued May 11, 2023, with the expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration. Although these data will continue to be publicly available, this dataset will no longer be updated.

This archived public use dataset has 11 data elements reflecting United States COVID-19 community levels for all available counties. 

The COVID-19 community levels were developed using a combination of three metrics — new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 population in the past 7 days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days. The COVID-19 community level was determined by the higher of the new admissions and inpatient beds metrics, based on the current level of new cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days. New COVID-19 admissions and the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied represent the current potential for strain on the health system. Data on new cases acts as an early warning indicator of potential increases in health system strain in the event of a COVID-19 surge.

Using these data, the COVID-19 community level was classified as low, medium, or high.

COVID-19 Community Levels were used to help communities and individuals make decisions based on their local context and their unique needs. Community vaccination coverage and other local information, like early alerts from surveillance, such as through wastewater or the number of emergency department visits for COVID-19, when available, can also inform decision making for health officials and individuals.

For the most accurate and up-to-date data for any county or state, visit the relevant health department website. COVID Data Tracker may display data that differ from state and local websites. This can be due to differences in how data were collected, how metrics were calculated, or the timing of web updates.

<b>Archived Data Notes:</b>

This dataset was renamed from "United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County as Originally Posted" to "United States COVID-19 Community Levels by County" on March 31, 2022. 

<b>March 31, 2022:</b> Column name for county population was changed to “county_population”. No change was made to the data points previous released.

<b>March 31, 2022:</b> New column, “health_service_area_population”, was added to the dataset to denote the total population in the designated Health Service Area based on 2019 Census estimate. 

<b>March 31, 2022:</b> FIPS codes for territories American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States Virgin Islands were re-formatted to 5-digit numeric for records released on 3/3/2022 to be consistent with other records in the dataset.

<b>March 31, 2022:</b> Changes were made to the text fields in variables “county”, “state”, and “health_service_area” so the formats are consistent across releases.

<b>March 31, 2022:</b> The “%” sign was removed from the text field in column “covid_inpatient_bed_utilization”. No change was made to the data. As indicated in the column description, values in this column represent the percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients (7-day average).  

<b>March 31, 2022:</b> Data values for columns, “county_population”, “health_service_area_number”, and “health_service_area” were backfilled for records released on 2/24/2022. These columns were added since the week of 3/3/2022, thus the values were previously missing for records released the week prior.

<b>April 7, 2022:</b> Updates made to data released on 3/24/2022 for Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and United States Virgin Islands to correct a data mapping error.

<b>April 21, 2022:</b> COVID-19 Community Level (CCL) data released for counties in Nebraska for the week of April 21, 2022 have 3 counties identified in the high category and 37 in the medium category. CDC has been working with state officials t