"To: The Unvaccinated" - w/Dr. Clay Marsh, West Virginia's Covid-Czar

According to a recent study by John Hopkins University, 1 in 500 Americans have died from coronavirus since the nation’s first reported infection. Think about that for a second and after you do check how many friends you have on Facebook, Twitter, etc and see what that would equate to for you. If you knew that you could save their life, would you? This podcast was recorded with that one person in mind.

We talk with Dr. Clay Marsh, the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for West Virginia. This state has the lowest vaccination record in the country, and his job is to find ways to change that and help West Virginia return back to normal. Our conversation is directly geared towards those who are unvaccinated. There is no talk of politics, or judgement for those who choose to remain unvaccinated, just straight talk out of the mouth of an expert. We discuss the following:

- Antibodies

- Ivermectin

- Herd Immunity

- Variants

- Vaccines

- The future of Covid-19

And we even role play, with me asking questions from the standpoint of a vaccine hesitant person. If you, or if you know someone, who isn’t vaccinated and want the real facts with no spin, no politics, no judgment and no guilt, you are going to want to catch this episode and then send it to someone you love.

Guest Bio:

Clay Marsh, MD, is West Virginia University’s chief health officer, and serves as a member of President E. Gordon Gee’s leadership team.  As WVU’s vice president for health sciences, he oversees five health sciences schools and three health campuses, and serves on the governing boards that determine policy and priorities for WVU Medicine and its component organizations. In addition, as executive dean, he is the leader of the WVU School of Medicine.

In his role as WVU’s health leader, he has mobilized resources across the University to help WVU Medicine become the leading employer in the state and to build signature programs of excellence in the areas of heart and vascular care, cancer prevention and treatment, women's and children’s health, trauma and critical care, and neurological health and disease. He also has focused resources on areas of emphasis, including opioid addiction, diabetes, and obesity.

As part of WVU’s efforts to address the opioid crisis in West Virginia and the nation, he organized a Substance Abuse Task Force to coordinate and strengthen the activities of the University’s patient care enterprise, research and teaching faculty, and administration in this area. He was a participant in the White House Symposium on the development of centers of academic excellence in addiction medicine and has participated in policy discussions with state and national leaders in education, research and public policy to advance these efforts.