The Team Positivity Rate (TPR) is calculated daily. A team can test 170 people six days a week, and the Big Ten recommends 120 players and 50 staff — Nebraska is doing that, per a team official — but it allows flexibility in those ratios. That’s 1,020 tests per week, which equals the rolling average because the denominator accumulates.
In order to meet the red testing threshold on the TPR, a team that takes 1,020 tests would have to have 51 positives.
To meet red on the TPR takes a massive outbreak, the kind that would indeed shut down a team for three weeks. It’s hard to do. Given that a lot of these teams had players test positive months ago, it may be darn near impossible.
The Population Positivity Rate (PPR) is different in an important way. That denominator stays at 170 all week. It doesn’t change regardless of how many total people you test, either.
In the PPR, the testing threshold is 7.5% to get into red. And that only takes 13 positive tests among players and staff. That’s not a massive outbreak.
It’s also not an automatic pause. Only red/red is an automatic pause. Again: It takes a ton of positives to get to red/red. But orange/red? That can be done with just a minor outbreak.
