DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says her administration is using $100 million from the federal government to maintain the state’s COVID-19 testing capacity as schools reopen and flu season begins.
Reynolds told reporters that she wanted to make sure the state has enough tests to meet the needs of K-12 schools, colleges, hospitals and businesses heading into the fall, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported.
But the governor told reporters that she also wants the state to be flexible in case testing needs change quickly. For example, she said the state later might want to buy saliva tests or tests that check for both COVID-19 and the flu.
“We wanted to make sure that we had an adequate supply, but that we also took into account that we know that this is rapidly changing,” Reynolds said. “And we didn’t want to be sitting on a bunch of tests, either.”
Results from roughly 6,500 coronavirus tests are reported daily in Iowa, the newspaper reported.
About 6,078 new coronavirus cases had been reported in Iowa in the week ending Saturday, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 tracking project. That’s on average around 868 new cases per day.
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