WACO, TX — Dr. Deborah Birx, the White Coronavirus Response Coordinator, visited the Baylor University campus Monday to praise them on their efforts for combating COVID-19.
Dr. Birx has been on a tour of many colleges throughout our nation and plans to visit dozens more in hopes of finding new ways and techniques for other universities that are looking to open in-person learning for the spring.
"These universities that opened and are staying opened provide the playbook for universities across this country to open in the spring," Dr. Birx said.
Baylor was praised for its efforts in partnering with the City of Waco, keeping constant communication with them and working together to keep everyone safe.
Dr. Birx said a top reason for many of these colleges that did open this fall and succeeded were because of the months of planning faculty and advisers accomplished before welcoming students on campus.
"Plans for testing, plans for isolating, isolating the positives, the ability to contact trace and the ability to quarantine," Dr. Birx said.
A while back Dr. Birx and Vice President Pence hosted a conference call with multiple faculty advisers and presidents of universities in the United States. Afterwards, President Dr. Linda Livingstone of Baylor reached out to Dr. Birx asking her to stop by.
Jason Cook, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, said when the White House showed interest, of course Baylor wanted to share their ideas.
"Today was really about sharing a lot of the things that we have done, some lessons learned from opening the campus," Cook said.
Dr. Birx also praised Baylor on it's innovative way to trace COVID-19. After a number of students contracted the virus at Martin Hall, Baylor thought testing wastewater could help them track the coronavirus.
"Seven months ago, we didn't think of doing any of these things," Dr. Birx said. "So this cutting edge, what we call innovated science and data collection will help other universities when they open in the spring."
Overall these visits are to help create a road map of success for the future, as more universities open their campus to students and staff.
