— Top health officials in Minnesota sounded the alarm Thursday over rising COVID-19 case totals in the border states of Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa, which all rank in the top 10 for per capita case growth over the past seven days. .

According to a state-by-state tracker designed by the New York Times, the Dakotas lead the country in case growth per 100,000 over the past week, followed by Missouri, Wisconsin, Arkansas and Iowa.

The return of college students to campus has driven a large portion of the case growth in Minnesota’s neighboring states.

At the flagship Madison location, the school reported 127 new positive tests on Thursday alone among students and faculty, totaling an 8.3 percent positivity rate over the past seven days (the figures represent testing done on campus)