The Iowa Department of Public Health is not tracking the rate of positive, negative, or inconclusive results from COVID-19 tests performed through Test Iowa, Ethan Stein reported for KCRG-TV on August 26.

State officials have declined to segregate data from Test Iowa so that the public could compare those results to COVID-19 tests performed in other settings. But I had assumed the state was collecting that information for its own analysis and quality control.

Not so, KCRG learned.

The Test Iowa program launched in April after state officials signed a no-bid $26 million contract with Utah-based companies. Governor Kim Reynolds pursued the public-private partnership to expand COVID-19 testing capacity after a tip from Ashton Kutcher.

Soon after, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that state’s program (run by the same companies) was producing positive results at a rate “far below those reported at other test sites in the state.” The Omaha World-Herald reported in May on “questions raised about the low rate of positive findings generated by the tests” in the Nebraska’s program, also managed by the Utah-based companies.

At Reynolds’ news conferences this spring, officials repeatedly rejected calls to segregate Test Iowa data from other COVID-19 results reported on coronavirus.iowa.gov. Here’s how the governor handled a question posed by Caroline Cummings of the Sinclair Broadcast Group on May 14.

KCRG kept pushing for Test Iowa results and had to threaten a lawsuit to get the records that informed Stein’s August 26 report. The station “was told the state has no way of knowing if a specific test from any manufacture is giving a disproportionate number of positives, negatives or inconclusive test results.”

The governor’s spokesperson Pat Garrett downplayed the matter, saying the State Hygienic Laboratory had validated Test Iowa’s equipment. (That happened in mid-May.)

Stein also reported that “it took 46 days to meet the state’s goal of testing 3,000 people in a single day” on June 19. When KCCI-TV’s Chris Gothner asked Reynolds on May 27 when Test Iowa would be meeting the threshold of conducting 3,000 COVID-19 tests per day, as specified under the $26 million contract, the governor argued that “we are there, basically.”

COVID-19 testing numbers from all Iowa sources have been below 3,000 on several days this month, according to graphs posted on the state website. At her August 6 news conference, Reynolds said the “slight decrease” in the number of Iowans getting tested for COVID-19 each day “is not a result of any capacity or supply issues through Test Iowa or the State Hygienic Lab.”

Test Iowa collection sites have moved around the state in response to perceived need. Currently the program has sites operating in Waterloo, Storm Lake, West Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Council Bluffs, and Marshalltown. Test Iowa clinics are also open for limited hours in Denison, Waterloo, Atlantic, and Carroll.

I will update this post following the governor’s August 27 news conference, since journalists will likely follow up on KCRG’s reporting.