Dr. Deborah Birx commends Clemson for COVID-19 practices during Friday visit

Ambassador Dr. Deborah Birx, world-renowned global health official and Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the whole of government response to COVID-19 for the Office of the Vice President, praised Clemson’s efforts to combat the spread of the virus and keep students, faculty, staff and the community healthy.

“We’ve been to 17 college campuses in the past few weeks, and Clemson has the absolute best website of any University we’ve visited,” Dr. Birx said. “The transparency of data and comprehensive information is really well done, not only for the community here but also for the general public. 

“It was apparent from the moment we arrived the outstanding efforts Clemson has done to open the university and to keep it open. It’s clear the students have taken a responsible approach to their return and the results have been encouraging.”

Dr. Birx visited with University officials including President Jim Clements, toured a testing site at Littlejohn Coliseum and walked through Memorial Stadium where she was able to view efforts to create a safe environment for football fans. In the afternoon, Dr. Birx participated in a roundtable discussion with community and state health officials.

Dr. Birx praised Clemson’s extensive testing program and encouraged the University to continue to ramp up testing capacity to help ensure it has as complete a picture as possible about the prevalence of COVID-19 in the campus community throughout the semester. Birx also stressed the importance of continued communication to students regarding safe behaviors.

“It was great having Dr. Birx visit our campus to not only see the efforts of our students, faculty and staff, but also provide some very valuable feedback to our approach,” President Clements said.

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ADDITIONAL DR. BIRX QUOTE

“It is apparent Clemson University, led by President Clements, is interested not only in the physical health, but also the mental health of its faculty, staff and students.”