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Wisconsin has been hit so hard by a spike in coronavirus cases, health officials had to create a whole new category to measure the outbreak.
The new category, “Critically High,” was formed after the infection rate in all 72 counties soared to more than twice the threshold of the previous top category, “Very High,” NBC15 reported Wednesday.
To be considered “Very High,” a county’s outbreak would have to exceed 350 cases per 100,000 residents. The new “Critically High” category increases the threshold to 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.
“To put the new data in perspective, Wisconsin is now seeing more average cases per day than New York City did at the peak of its surge last spring,” Department of Health Services Deputy Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk told the station. “Far too many of our communities are in a dire situation.”
The total average infection rate in the Badger State is 1,310.6 cases per 100,000 — a level that has spiked by more than 25 percent in the past two weeks, according to health data.
The off-the-charts numbers of infected people have clogged hospitals and made it difficult for the state’s health department to effectively contact-trace the virus, officials said.
“Because of these critically high levels of disease, public health can no longer adequately contact trace, hospital beds are filled with patients with COVID-19, and too many Wisconsin families are losing loved ones to this virus,” Willems Van Dijk told NBC15.
Health care workers administer coronavirus tests in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.REUTERSOnly seven counties in the state were below the “Critically High” threshold as of Thursday — Burnett, Dane, Douglas, Green, Vernon, Walworth and Washburn counties.
Just one of the state’s 72 counties — Green County — reported coronavirus numbers that were not rising.



