FDA Raises Concerns About Inaccurate COVID Tests as Some Colleges and Universities Struggle with Reopening

In a stunning announcement Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration revealed that a popular COVID-19 test could be giving invalid or false-negative results.

Officials say the test produced by Thermo Fisher Scientific is vulnerable to false negatives if the samples are not properly processed.

This news comes as the World Health Organization warned that young people are becoming the main spreaders of the virus.

"The trouble is, there are areas of the country. Several are actually in community spread," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

It also comes at a time when colleges and universities are grappling with reopening their campuses as new outbreaks occur.

Large parties like the one at the University of North Georgia last weekend are part of the problem.  

"We can't have these large parties," said Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House response coordinator with the US Coronavirus Task Force.  "Because of the level of asymptomatic spread."

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With at least 89 coronavirus cases on the campus of Notre Dame, the school's president is moving undergraduate classes online and canceling most in-classroom instruction.

"If these steps are not successful, we'll have to send students home as we did last spring," said Rev. John I. Jenkins, University of Notre Dame.

Officials at UNC-Chapel Hill have already canceled most in-person instruction and students are being encouraged to leave campus.

"I think we're going to wait it out and once they kick us out, we'll go home. I think that's our plan for now," said Fiona Kincaid, a UNC-Chapel Hill freshman. 

Students on the campus of the University of Colorado Boulder are concerned after six cases of the virus were detected.

The infected students are now in quarantine, but the school still plans to hold in-person classes as testing continues.

"We're going to be setting up a program for testing of individuals randomly to try to find cases before there is an outbreak," a school administrator said.

Meanwhile, Thermo Fisher said in a statement that faulty test results are rare and most users get accurate results by following company directions.

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