As the spring semester takes off, so has a surge of COVID-19 cases throughout the Clemson student body, faculty and staff. Following with national trends, this may be due to the Omicron variant, which has been said to be highly infectious even within largely vaccinated communities.
Self-reported vaccination status dropped from the fall to spring semester. 62.9% of students now report a fully vaccinated status, compared to the 63.5% student vaccination rate recorded during the fall semester.
Clemson remains behind other universities in the reported number of vaccinated students. The University of South Carolina reports a 69.3% vaccination status throughout its student body, yet both universities are experiencing a COVID-19 surge.
The increase in positive cases as students return to campus after winter break largely contrasts the promising COVID-19 rates seen during the return from summer break into the fall semester.
Before returning to campus, students and faculty were required to submit COVID-19 tests. Ten days prior to fall semesters there were a total of 31,886 submitted tests, with 309 positive cases. In the ten days before the spring 2022 semester, 32,966 tests were conducted finding 3552 positive COVID-19 cases.
Clemson University did not respond to requests for comment.
All data has been collected from Clemson University’s COVID-19 dashboard.

Gallery • 1 Photos

Caroline Elswick, News Editor

The total number of positive tests reported to Clemson from Jan. 3.