By Tim Mastro

DOVER — As most COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted across the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a new community-level tracker that analyzes counties based on new cases of the virus, hospital admissions and available hospital beds. Using this data, counties are sorted as either having a low, medium or high COVID-19 community level.

The tracker is part of the CDC’s effort to analyze daily COVID-19 numbers by individual communities. It is available here.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky explained the new system is intended to help guide research toward more efficient precautionary measures.

“This framework moves beyond looking just at cases & test positivity to evaluate factors that reflect severity of disease, including hospitalizations & hospital capacity,” she tweeted.

Along with the county-level tracker, the CDC released guidelines for counties depending on their COVID-19 level. For communities with low and medium levels, masks are not mandatory inside, unless an individual is part of an at-risk group. For communities with high levels, masks should continue to be worn indoors in public.

All three of Delaware counties are in the “low” spread level, according to the tracker.

Users are able to search any county in the country via the CDC’s tracker. Director Walensky warned wearing masks may be necessary in order to be “vigilant” in cold months when other respiratory illnesses like the flu are commonly spread.

“I do anticipate that this is probably going to be a seasonal virus,” Walensky said in an exclusive interview with NBC News. “I would say put your masks in a drawer, anticipate you may need them again and hope that we don’t.”

Like most of the country, Delaware’s cases have been dropping since the omicron surge set records in December and January.

The state is averaging 62.7 new cases of COVID-19 per day over the last seven days, the Delaware Division of Public Health reported Sunday. That seven-day rolling average was at 227 new cases per day 30 days ago and as high as 3,444.7 new cases per day on Jan. 12 at the peak of the winter surge.

Delaware’s seven-day rolling average for percentage of positive tests is down to 2.9% — below the World Health Organization’s recommended mark of 5%. It was as high as 32.1% on Jan. 11.

DPH reported 42 individuals hospitalized with the virus in Sunday’s update, only four of those are considered critical. COVID-19 hospitalizations fell below the 100-mark on Feb. 26 and have remained there ever since. The state set a record of 759 hospitalizations on Jan. 12.

Delaware has recorded 258,671 cases all-time and 2,833 COVID-19-related deaths. The death total was updated this weekend with 21 deaths added Saturday after a review of vital statistics records from January and February.

Information from the Capital News Service was used in this report.