As a reminder, earlier in 2022, the CDC changed their COVID maps over to "Community Levels", which is more an indicator of whether hospitals are full, rather than transmission alone. It effectively downplayed the amount of COVID spread.
Here's a good explanation from the People's CDC about why the CDC "Community Levels" map is problematic, and downplays the state of the pandemic, exposing more people to harm.
https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/03/peoples-cdc-covid-guidelines