PHOENIX — Maricopa County and most of Arizona have been downgraded back down to the "medium" risk level for COVID-19 and residents are no longer advised to wear masks indoors, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The most recent calculations done by the federal agency have reassigned six Arizona counties from the "high" to the "medium" category on the CDC COVID-19 scale.
Those counties now in the medium range include Maricopa, Pinal, Gila, Yavapai, La Paz, and Coconino.
Residents in these counties are recommended to consult a doctor on whether they should keep wearing masks, according to the CDC guidance.
Mohave, Navajo, and Apache counties remain in the "high" category, meaning residents in those areas are encouraged to continue wearing masks inside public places.
The CDC community levels are calculated by analyzing a county's infection rate and hospitalizations.
Maricopa County's status on the CDC scale has been fluctuating over the last couple of weeks after case numbers started rising again across Arizona.
Local health officials say the latest surge has not yet overwhelmed health facilities compared to previous surges experienced during the pandemic.
"While hospitalizations for COVID-19 are increasing, they are not increasing nearly as much as they did during the Omicron surge in January 2022," Maricopa County Public Health wrote in a statement earlier this week.
Omicron remains the most prevalent strain of COVID-19 contracted by Arizonans. But health officials in Maricopa County say they're noticing a "lower severity" of illness among those who have caught the virus.
Though most of Arizona's counties are now in the "medium" or "low" zones of the CDC scale, health officials stipulated that some local cases are likely not getting reported due to at-home testing kits.
"We know that there is more COVID-19 circulating in the community than official numbers indicate," Maricopa County Public Health officials stated.
As of June, Arizona was reporting somewhere between 13,000 and 16,500 cases of COVID-19 per week. During the peak of the winter surge, Arizona had up to 150,000 cases each week.
The Arizona Department of Health Services says vaccinations remain the best defense for avoiding a severe illness caused by COVID-19.
According to the agency, unvaccinated individuals have an eight-times greater risk of becoming hospitalized due to COVID-19.
About 58% of Maricopa County's population is fully vaccinated, CDC data show.
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