DOI: 10.3886/e244169v1
title: United States COVID-19 County Level of Community Transmission as Originally Posted - ARCHIVED

description: On October 20, 2022, CDC began retrieving aggregate case and death data from jurisdictional and state partners weekly instead of daily. This dataset contains archived community transmission and related data elements by county as originally displayed on the COVID Data Tracker. Although these data will continue to be publicly available, this dataset has not been updated since October 20, 2022. An archived dataset containing weekly community transmission data by county as originally posted can also be found here: Weekly COVID-19 County Level of Community Transmission as Originally Posted | Data | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov).

Related data
CDC has been providing the public with two versions of COVID-19 county-level community transmission level data: this dataset with the daily values as originally posted on the COVID Data Tracker, and an historical dataset with daily data as well as the updates and corrections from state and local health departments. Similar to this dataset, the original historical dataset is archived on 10/20/2022. It will continue to be publicly available but will no longer be updated. A new dataset containing historical community transmission data by county is now published weekly and can be found at: Weekly COVID-19 County Level of Community Transmission Historical Changes | Data | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov).

This public use dataset has 7 data elements reflecting community transmission levels for all available counties and jurisdictions. It contains reported daily transmission levels at the county level with the same values used to display transmission maps on the COVID Data Tracker. Each day, the dataset is appended to contain the most recent day's data. Transmission level is set to low, moderate, substantial, or high using the calculation rules below.

Methods for calculating county level of community transmission indicator
The County Level of Community Transmission indicator uses two metrics: (1) total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 persons in the last 7 days and (2) percentage of positive SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) in the last 7 days. For each of these metrics, CDC classifies transmission values as low, moderate, substantial, or high (below and here). If the values for each of these two metrics differ (e.g., one indicates moderate and the other low), then the higher of the two should be used for decision-making.

CDC core metrics of and thresholds for community transmission levels of SARS-CoV-2

Total New Case Rate Metric: "New cases per 100,000 persons in the past 7 days" is calculated by adding the number of new cases in the county (or other administrative level) in the last 7 days divided by the population in the county (or other administrative level) and multiplying by 100,000. "New cases per 100,000 persons in the past 7 days" is considered to have a transmission level of Low (0-9.99); Moderate (10.00-49.99); Substantial (50.00-99.99); and High (greater than or equal to 100.00).

Test Percent Positivity Metric: "Percentage of positive NAAT in the past 7 days" is calculated by dividing the number of positive tests in the county (or other administrative level) during the last 7 days by the total number of tests conducted over the last 7 days. "Percentage of positive NAAT in the past 7 days" is considered to have a transmission level of Low (less than 5.00); Moderate (5.00-7.99); Substantial (8.00-9.99); and High (greater than or equal to 10.00).

If the two metrics suggest different transmission levels, the higher level is selected.

The reported transmission categories include:

Low Transmission Threshold: Counties with fewer than 10 total cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days, and a NAAT percent test positivity in the past 7 days below 5%;

Moderate Transmission Threshold: Counties with 10-49 total cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days or a NAAT test percent positivity in the past 7 days of 5.0-7.99%;

Substantial Transmission Threshold: Counties with 50-99 total cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days or a NAAT test percent positivity in the past 7 days of 8.0-9.99%;

High Transmission Threshold: Counties with 100 or more total cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days or a NAAT test percent positivity in the past 7 days of 10.0% or greater.

Blank: total new cases in the past 7 days are not reported (county data known to be unavailable) and the percentage of positive NAATs tests during the past 7 days (blank) are not reported.

Data Suppression
To prevent the release of data that could be used to identify people, data cells are suppressed for low frequency. When the case counts used to calculate the total new case rate metric ("cases_per_100K_7_day_count_change") is greater than zero and less than 10, this metric is set to "suppressed" to protect individual privacy. If the case count is 0, the total new case rate metric is still displayed.

The data in this dataset are considered provisional by CDC and are subject to change until the data are reconciled and verified with the state and territorial data providers. This dataset is created using CDC’s Policy on Public Health Research and Nonresearch Data Management and Access.
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