UArizona: COVID-19 rerun tests reveal some student-athletes, others had false positive results

Maria Arey:

The University of Arizona says COVID-19 retesting on some student-athletes and other individuals showed false positives last week.

On Thursday, after Arizona Athletics reported a single-day of high positive COVID-19 test results, and conducting contact-tracing, the medical director requested rerun test samples, stating that the contact tracing history did not uphold the positive results, according to UArizona.

The retest displayed that false positive results were previously reported due to inconsistent information, which urged the additional testing Arizona Athletics Director of Medical Services Dr. Stephen Paul said.

On Sep. 3, the athletics department reported 13 positive test results for athletes, after a rerun of those tests, two came back positive. According to the university, in addition, there were 12 positive tests of non-athletes collected at Campus Health, after rerun of those, eight came back positive.

The lab attributes the incorrect results to an instrumentation error and will perform a full audit of testing processes.