Perhaps not important, but the upgrade to level 7 does not reflect a worsening of the crisis, but a reappraisal of data.
However, the boundaries of the upper levels of this scale are exceptionally wide and the fact that it now shares the same level as Chernobyl is neither here nor there - it makes nice headlines for newspapers, but still, as even the WHO acknowledges, there is very little public health risk beyond the exclusion zone. Outside the boundaries of the actual plant, no persons have, to date, experienced any sickness or contamination.
In the month that these reactors have been crippled, total injuries amongst plant workers amount to less than two dozen cases of minor radiation sickness. Compare that to the more than 2000-6000 that die in accidents in coal mines every single year in China alone, this statistic not including the many more than will go on to develop chronic illnesses worldwide. Compare it to deaths in the oil industry, compare it to the automatic environmental damage that occurs when forests of turbines go up.