SO MUCH WINNING!:

The Grand Island area -- by far Nebraska's biggest coronavirus hot spot -- now has rates of illness comparable to some of the hardest-hit states in the country.

Not only does surrounding Hall County now have more cases than any county in Nebraska, its per capita case rate is almost 12 times that of Douglas County and more than 25 times that of Lancaster County, a World-Herald analysis found.

The Hall County rate is also now about equal to that of Louisiana, which ranks among the top states nationally in both cases and deaths. It's also higher than the per capita rate in Michigan, a state that has been in such a significant state-ordered lockdown because of the virus that it has spawned public protests.

And as eye-popping as such numbers are, Grand Island, Nebraska's third-largest metro area, is still likely weeks away from its peak of cases and deaths. The sixth death in the local three-county health district was reported Thursday.

"Our expectation is that every day we will see large numbers of new cases and every day we will see a number of deaths," Central District Health Department Director Teresa Anderson said Thursday. "If we take our lessons from what's been happening in other parts of the country, I'm going to say the writing is on the wall."

Despite such numbers, Gov. Pete Ricketts continued to say Thursday that the state's response to the coronavirus pandemic is working.

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