Wisconsin sets record for daily COVID-19 case increase

Wisconsin on Saturday hit a record for COVID-19 cases reported in a single day as health officials said 2,817 people more have tested positive for the coronavirus.

The state has seen some of the nation's fastest coronavirus spread over the last two weeks. The rolling average number of daily new cases has increased by 950, an increase of nearly 97 percent, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. In that time, the state has reported the nation's third-highest number of new cases per capita, with about 423 new cases per 100,000 people.

Wisconsin saw 2,504 new cases on Friday and 2,392 new cases in Thursday’s update.

In another troubling trend, the positivity rate for coronavirus testing has also been among the country’s highest. That's an indicator that many more people have infections than tests are revealing. The seven-day positivity rate is currently over 17 percent, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Saturday's positivity rate for testing was even higher, at 22 percent.

Over the course of the pandemic, 113,645 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Wisconsin. About 83 percent of those people have recovered, while over 18,000 have active infections and 1,281 have died. The Department of Health Services on Saturday reported seven new deaths.

Wisconsin's 2,817 newly confirmed cases on Saturday were from 12,584 test results.

Minnesota also set a daily COVID-19 case record on Saturday, with 1,478 newly confirmed cases based off 30,695 test results.

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