Hongjie Liu appointed to Montgomery County COVID Advisory Board
Professor Hongjie Liu, chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and MPRC Faculty Associate, was appointed by Montgomery County, Maryland, to serve on its advisory group of scientists and medical professionals to help with its recovery plans during the pandemic.
Dr. Liu and colleagues at the School of Public Health who are part of a COVID-19 projections team, have been working with Maryland counties to contribute to the ongoing planning and decision-making required from week to week during the pandemic. The team uses existing models, evidence from the peer-reviewed literature and also has developed new models. They are taking real-time daily data, and accounting for the dates that different mitigation activities were launched (e.g., mask wearing requirement) to make projections for the counties and the state. Sociodemographic, economic, health care, mobility and determinants of health data are further refining the models, as are collaborations with other academic and community-based colleagues.