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Utah Tech Bros Behind TestNebraska Are Probably Failing to Catch Most COVID Cases

We have already covered the absurdity of Pete Ricketts awarding a 27-million-dollar no-bid contract to a couple of highly suspect Utah tech bros wanting to play doctor in our state. We have also mentioned that results in states where these bros are running the testing programs are coming back with far lower positive rates than what the medical community would expect.

There’s a reason for that, explains biologist Peter Richterich, who has taken a close look at viral load distributions and the testing used by the Utah bros.

As Richterich explains, there is a very wide range in the amount of RNA present in samples taken from infected people. If we are to take the Utah bros at face value, by their own documentation, they would be performing tests sensitive enough to catch only 60% of patients who actually have COVID. Additionally, Richterich discovered while examining their documentation and their actual testing protocol, they are putting swab samples in more dilution than their calculations account for, which would, by his reckoning, reduce the testing efficacy so much that they would fail to detect more than half of positive COVID patients.

With their positive rates falling far below what medical professionals expect to see, we have no reason to believe they are performing satisfactory testing.

We have not seen recent Test Nebraska numbers from the Ricketts administration, but the last time he held a presser, Dr. Antone claimed that Test Nebraska had a 3% positivity rate. We suggest the public view that number with great skepticism.

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