Iowa Releases Updated COVID-19 Testing Numbers For Athletic Department

A total of 32 positive and 613 negative tests were found last week.

The Iowa athletic department had 32 positive COVID-19 tests out of 646 conducted last week.

A total of 613 tests were negative, the university announced on Tuesday. One was inconclusive. There were 4.9 percent positive tests.

Since testing began on May 29, a total of 83 positives, 1,838 negatives and one inconclusive test have been found (4.3 percent).

Athletes, coaches and staff are tested. The athletic department does not announce specific testing numbers of the three groups.

There will be no fall sports seasons at Iowa this season after the Big Ten's plan to postpone them until spring.

According to the university's protocols, contact tracing procedures are conducted. The protocols also include isolation for the individuals who test positive, and quarantine for those individuals who might have been exposed to someone with the virus.

Iowa has had to cut four sports — men's tennis, men's gymnastics, and men's and women's swimming and diving — because of an estimated $100 million loss in revenue because of the postponement of football to a possible spring season.

“You can start to go down all these different roads. In the end, whatever I came up with, whatever we came up with, you could make the case that we shouldn’t have cut this one, or we should have cut that one instead,” Barta said during a Monday video conference. “We ended up cutting the sports we felt were going to best position us to come out of this pandemic once it’s all over.”

The August 11 decision by the Big Ten to not have a fall football season because of medical concerns related to the virus set in motion the decisions made at Iowa, including the need to borrow approximately $75 million to offset the financial losses.

“It was 100 percent determined and driven by (the financial fallout of) COVID-19,” Barta said. “Were it not for that, we wouldn’t have been dropping those four sports. August 11 was a memorable day. From that point forward, we started to put a plan in action.

“We had to cut sports, and we had to get to the decision of which ones, which has been a challenge.”