For the first time since mid-April, COVID-19 community levels in New York state have had their first substantial decline, particularly in Central New York, which once led the state and nation in a post-omicron springtime spike, according to new data released Friday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As of Friday, 32 of the state's 62 counties are now classified by the CDC as having "high" community levels of the coronavirus. That’s down from 54 last week.

The CDC uses a "high," "medium" and "low" classification, which is determined by the number of new cases in the county per 100,000 people in the past seven days; the number of new hospital admissions with COVID-19 in the past seven days per 100,000 people; and the percentage of staffed inpatient beds in use by patients with COVID-19 within a seven-day average.

With a "high" level, the CDC recommends wearing masks in indoor public areas and on public transportation. There are currently no local mask requirements in these areas, outside of the statewide requirement for them in bus and train stations, prisons, state-regulated care settings and homeless shelters.

One week ago, there was only one county in the state that was classified as “low.” Now there are nine, noticeably the ones in Central New York — Onondaga, Cayuga, Oswego, Madison and Cortland — the region which has been at “high” levels for a month and a half and once were among the few counties in the whole country at that level. The region was the first in New York to have confirmed COVID-19 cases caused by the BA.2 omicron subvariant known as BA.2.12, state officials said at the time.

In addition, many counties were downgraded from “high” to “medium” in the last week, from those in the Finger Lakes region to parts of the North Country and outer Capital Region. All of New York City remains in the "high" category.

Nationwide, there are 250 counties the CDC said have “high” levels of COVID-19, down from 297 a week ago, also the first time that number has decreased this spring. However, the vast majority of "high" counties remains to be in the Northeast.

According to state data released Thursday by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office, the state’s seven-day average of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people stood at 42.81, down from 48.99 a week ago. In recent weeks, New York health officials and those in other states have started using cases per 100,000 residents, and not the more traditional percentage of positive results of those who have been tested, as a more accurate way of measuring infection rates.