MADISON (WKOW) -- Wisconsin health officials have explained the metric they will use to know when to reopen the state.
Gov. Tony Everslaid out several criteria he and health officials will use to reopen Wisconsinin the Badger Bounce Back plan. One of those was a 14-day drop in the number of daily positive cases.
But the state is rapidly expanding its testing capacity. If more people get tested, won't the number of positive cases only go up?
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) explained how it plans to monitor for a reduction in new infections despite greater testing.
Rather than look at only the number of tests that come back positive in a given day, health officials instead monitor the percentage of tests that are positive.
Ina video posted to the department's YouTube channelFriday, DHS used the following example:
Suppose the state ran 1,000 tests and 100 came back positive, that would mean 10% of tests were positive.
If the next day the state the state tested 2,000 people and 200 were positive, the rate is still 10% positive. Even though the number of positives doubled from one day to the next, the rate remained flat, accounting for the increase in testing.
That rate is the figure health officials will monitor. Health officials have said the rate has held steady in recent days.
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