Rice University discovers false positive COVID tests after moving classes online
Fifty Rice students received false positive test results.
The university had already moved classes online through September 3.
Rice University moved to online classes last week after a surprisingly high amount of students tested for COVID-19, which the university now says were false positives.
Approximately 2% of the 4,500 administered tests produced a positive result. Consequently, Rice delayed the start of classes by two days to yesterday while maintaining online instruction through September 3.
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Unlike public schools in Texas, which are barred from mandating the COVID vaccine or masks, Rice stated that it expects students to get vaccinated before returning to campus.
After analyzing the results, the university began to suspect that there was something amiss. Although Coronavirus tends to spread in clusters, these new cases were not, The New York Times reported. Over 90% of the positive cases came from only one of their three providers. Ultimately, 50 of the 81 students that initially tested positive were found to be negative for the virus.
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Rice is not alone is experiencing a reported spike in COVID-19 cases on campus.
Duke University recently had 36 students test positive. The students were either asymptomatic or experienced mild cold symptoms.
Campus Reform reached out to Rice University for comment, but they did not respond in time for the publication of this article.
