Coronavirus testing at NC State finds few positive cases

The early COVID-19 testing returns have been encouraging for NC State. Per Brett McMurphy, State has had only five positive test cases among the 315 athletes and staff it has been monitoring. That’s a positive test rate of 1.6%, which is well below the national and state averages.

This situation on NC State’s campus can change as more athletes return to campus—I assume football players have made up the bulk of athlete testing thus far, and the basketball team only returned to Raleigh this month.

But other places are already struggling badly with outbreaks of positive cases, and that includes UNC, which recently shut down voluntary workouts because of 37 positives in its athletics department. Ohio State has done the same, but didn’t disclose numbers.

Those are ominous signs given that college campuses are largely empty at this point; the almost-impossible challenge of keeping infection rates low at NC State and elsewhere once the general student population returns to school hasn’t even been confronted yet.