Lincoln – Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts expressed confidence Thursday in the new coronavirus tests that the state purchased through a no-bid contract with a small Utah startup firm after a local newspaper raised questions about the accuracy of the company’s results.

Ricketts said state officials will work to ensure that the tests administered through the TestNebraska program are accurate to avoid giving a false negative result to people who have coronavirus symptoms.

“We will be setting it up and we will be verifying it to make sure it’s calibrated appropriately and testing our samples to make sure we’re getting it right,” Ricketts said at his weekday coronavirus news conference. “But I want to emphasize that this is not some brand new technology.”

His comments came in response to questions rising from a Salt Lake Tribune story. The newspaper reported that 2% of symptomatic patients in a Utah program run by the same company tested positive for the coronavirus, compared to 5% who tested positive at other Utah sites.

Ricketts announced last week that Nebraska would pay about $27 million to Nomi Health, a Salt Lake City startup, for 540,000 coronavirus tests in hopes of expanding the state’s ability to test residents. The announcement came the same day that Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced a similar agreement with the same company.

Ricketts has said the company came up in a conversation with Reynolds, who later told reporters that she was acting on a tip from Iowa-born actor Ashton Kutcher. Ricketts and Reynolds said they also consulted with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a fellow Republican who also agreed to work with Nomi Health.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds also expressed confidence Thursday that the TestIowa program would be reliable and accurate once the machines Iowa bought for the program are validated and set up. Iowa paid $15 million up front to get the program started.

Ricketts said the company’s tests will be managed and analyzed by Nebraska experts. He declined to specify, saying he planned to make a formal announcement later.

Nomi Health’s partners include Utah-based Co-Diagnostics, which recently received federal approval to sell COVID-19 testing kits, and tech firms Qualtrics and Domo. It’s the Co-Diagnostics tests that the Utah newspaper said may be turning up fewer positive results than other coronavirus tests.

Company officials denied there was a discrepancy and said results vary with different populations. Utah is testing anyone who wants to be tested, so such a population would likely result in fewer positive results than if testing was focused on individuals who have symptoms or work in areas with outbreaks, the company said.

Nebraska has seen a jump in COVID-19 deaths following technical difficulties with the state’s coronavirus tracking portal in recent days, state health officials said.

The jump is deaths came on the same day that Gov. Pete Ricketts unveiled plans to ease coronavirus restrictions in Lincoln and other parts of Nebraska. It also came as the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services reported that a fourth state prisons staffer – this one at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln ­– had tested positive for the virus.

State officials said the reported number of confirmed cases statewide continues to lag actual counts due to the technical problems.