The Specialists Cohort (South Carolina)
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Lior Rennert has been knee-deep in researching the best ways to study the spread of the novel coronavirus in order to mitigate its reach.
Rennert, assistant professor in Clemson’s department of public health sciences and a biostatistician, is leading a significant part of the university’s response to COVID-19.
Last fall, Rennert and his team decided to look into pre-arrival testing before students came back to campus.
“We essentially developed models that showed that if you test everybody before arrival or upon arrival, you can severely limit the outbreak size and delay them as well,” says Rennert. He says that he gives Clemson credit for conducting pre-arrival testing even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had yet to explicitly recommend it.
Another aspect of planning against the coronavirus focused on what Rennert calls a new “surveillanc…
