Centre County moves back to 'low' on CDC's COVID-19 community level scale

Jun. 10—Centre County returned to the low level on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID-19 Community Level scale in Thursday's weekly update.

Centre County briefly moved to a high level, where masking indoors for all is recommended, before returning to a medium level with last week's update. At low levels, the CDC recommends staying up to date with vaccinations and testing if symptoms arise. Masking is optional at low levels but the CDC still recommends masking while on public transportation.

COVID-19 community levels are measured by weekly new cases per 100,000 people, new COVID-19 hospitalizations per 100,000 people and the average percent of staffed inpatient beds by COVID patients.

The CDC recorded 168.73 cases per 100,000 people in from June 2-8 with 6.3% of staffed inpatient beds used by COVID-19 patients. Mount Nittany Health reported 10 COVID hospitalizations as of Thursday, with fewer than seven hospitalizations each day since June 3.

Most Pennsylvania counties have returned to low levels, including Mifflin, Clinton and Clearfield counties.

Centre County's transmission level — a separate measure from community level — remains high, along with most of the state, according to the CDC. The CDC defines "community transmission" both as the total number of new cases per every 100,000 people during the previous seven days and percentage of tests that come back positive within that same time period.

The community level measure takes into account both case counts and stress on the health care system.

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