Dr. Clay Marsh Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

COVID-19 Numbers Rising, New Variant, New Vaccine

Dr. Clay Marsh said a new vaccine due out in mid-September will prove extremely helpful in COVID-19 protection.

West Virginia University Chief Health Officer Dr. Clay Marsh said that the variant EG.5 is now the most common form of COVID-19 in the nation and on the upswing in West Virginia. In a Wednesday media briefing with Gov. Jim Justice, Marsh said the variant is not more severe, but more evasive to the immune system.

“It is able to trick the immune system for people even who’ve had vaccines in the past,” Marsh said. “Even those who’ve had COVID in the past. So we are seeing an upswing in the number of people that are being infected.”

Marsh said a new vaccine due out in mid-September will prove extremely helpful in COVID-19 protection.

“It really does appear that this new vaccine will be very, very effective, and give us more protection against this new variant,” he said.

Marsh said people over 65 should be more careful now along with people that have illnesses or genetic conditions that make them immunosuppressed.

“In other words, people taking chemotherapy right now for cancer or taking drugs to influence immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn’s disease or inflammatory bowel disease,” Marsh said. “Those medications that are being used can suppress your immune system.”

Marsh suggested early fall will be a good time for everyone to get their flu, COVID-19 and a new RSV vaccine, protecting against the respiratory syncytial virus.

“The RSV vaccine is particularly important for children and older West Virginia citizens,” he said. “RSV can give people a pretty severe illness who are really young, or or that are older, and the flu vaccine is good for all of us,18 and over.”

Marsh said the flu vaccine, the RSV vaccine, and the COVID-19 vaccine all should be taken around the same time period, in the September-October timeframe.

$50 million In State Surplus Awarded to WVU Cancer Institute

Alongside health officials from West Virginia University, Gov. Jim Justice announced Thursday that $50 million of the state’s surplus funding will support investment to attain National Cancer Institute designation for the WVU Cancer Institute.

“I am thrilled to deliver this $50 million check to the West Virginia University Cancer Institute in their pursuit of an official cancer center designation by the National Cancer Institute,”. Justice said. “I want to express my deep gratitude to the West Virginia Legislature for allocating these crucial funds, and to WVU Medicine for pursuing this incredible goal, because we all recognize the importance and significance of obtaining this recognition from the NCI, as it is only bestowed upon the nation’s top cancer centers. This funding will serve as a catalyst to jumpstart our progress towards that goal, and I couldn’t be more proud.”

The funding was included in House Bill 2024 as part of the Fiscal Year 2024 budget passed by the West Virginia Legislature.

According to a press release, the money will be used for comprehensive research programs, faculty and facilities that will directly lead to innovative approaches in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

“Our goal is to place the WVU Cancer Institute in the top 2 percent of cancer centers nationwide, which will improve the health and wellness of the people in our state, particularly in southern West Virginia, by reducing cancer occurrence rates and increasing cancer survival,” WVU President Gordon Gee said.

The National Cancer Institute leads cancer research across the country and recognizes cancer centers with an official NCI designation, the highest federal rating a cancer center can achieve.

Justice made the announcement at WVU Medicine Princeton Community Hospital with Gee, WVU Health System President and Chief Executive Officer Albert L. Wright, Jr., WVU Health Sciences Chancellor and Executive Dean Dr. Clay Marsh and WVU Cancer Institute Director Dr. Hannah Hazard-Jenkins.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Drug Czar Visits W.Va. To Discuss Overdose Epidemic

The nation’s drug czar visited West Virginia University Thursday as the start of a multi-day tour of the state. The purpose of the trip is to discuss local and national efforts to address the overdose epidemic.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy led a panel of lawmakers, university and student leaders, including Dr. Clay Marsh, to discuss the Biden Administration’s National Drug Control Strategy.

He said he was happy to be back in what he considered his home, and that West Virginia is leading the nation in its response to the opioid epidemic.

“For several years, I’ve seen the work grow, the treatment sites get better and better, specifically in West Virginia as a model for the nation,” he said. “When we think about treatment, we in the Biden administration, until now, about $15 billion dollars have come through to West Virginia.”

Gupta previously served as the Commissioner of DHHR’s Bureau for Public Health and State Health Officer before becoming the first doctor to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy when he was appointed in 2021.

He said the landscape of the overdose epidemic has changed, shifting towards synthetic drugs and predominantly online access to them and requiring a multidisciplinary approach. Gupta compared the state of addiction medicine and policy to cancer in the early 20th century.

“This is one of the most significant shifts in drug policy we’re making in the last half century. The President’s strategy, my office, our defense, is looking at two key drivers: untreated addiction and the lack of treatment infrastructure,” he said. “That’s no different than when we were with cancer a hundred years ago. A disease that was highly stigmatized, poorly resourced. Today, if you look at it, we treat with compassion and empathy, we’re on top of the world when it comes to diagnosing, treating and preventing cancer. That’s where we need to be with addiction mental health.”

Much of the day’s discussion revolved around the issues of mental health at the core of the epidemic.

“We really need to be looking at this as itself a crisis, mental health, and then obviously its overlap with addiction as well,” Gupta said. “So I applaud the work that is happening here. I think more schools K through 12, as well as nurses have to be engaged in mental health because it is a true challenge.”

Gupta will continue his tour Friday in Charleston and in Lewisburg Saturday, where he will visit the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine.

COVID-19 Pandemic Wanes But Fight Continues

The COVID-19 pandemic may seem to be a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean the fight against it is over. Since last week, 16 West Virginians died from COVID-19. The nationwide average is 225 deaths a week. The West Virginia death total since the beginning of the pandemic is 8,083.

The COVID-19 pandemic may seem to be a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean the fight against it is over.

Since last week, 16 West Virginians died from COVID-19. The nationwide average is 225 deaths a week. The West Virginia death total since the beginning of the pandemic is 8,083.

Dr. Clay Marsh, West Virginia’s coronavirus czar, explained during Gov. Jim Justice’s press briefing that the Biden administration is looking to expand the original Operation Warp Speed, created under the Trump administration, with a new initiative called Next Gen.

“What’s exciting about this is that the Biden administration is committing to looking at this pandemic and learning from it to continue to evolve the tools that we have available for us to protect our population in case there is another variant that causes a problem,” he said.

The program has three phases:

One: Develop new antibodies that will resist changes in COVID-19.
Two: Develop a nasal vaccine for COVID 19.
Three: Develop a super COVID-19 vaccine that will cover a number of variants.

Marsh noted that about 92 percent of the population has some level of immunity to the virus but 90 percent of the deaths are happening in the older population with a weakened immune system. Another potentially more infectious variant is emerging.

“We had seen the XBB1.5 variant as the dominant variant for several months now,” he said. “In India, we’re starting to see a new variant that is emerging from this family tree and it’s called the XBB1.16 variant. And it has three additional mutations that make it more infectious. Make it able to avoid the immune system better.”

Marsh said while the variant is in the U.S., it hasn’t spread as quickly as it has in India so far.

“We always want to work around the world to get any clues about things that could interfere with our health and well being related to COVID here in the United States, and importantly in West Virginia,” he said.

Marsh also referenced a study from the medical journal Lancet that looked at how various states handled the pandemic.

He said West Virginia had the highest level of age and other medical illnesses in the country. But when the study adjusted for those problems, West Virginia ended up with the 14th best outcomes.

“It was the largest difference by far of any state in the country,” Marsh said. “We want to continue to remain diligent about COVID-19 and make sure we protect the people at the highest risk. We also want to turn our focus toward the other health problems we have in the state, and working together I believe can continue to be a model for others.”

Coronavirus Continues To Mutate, Become More Infectious

Dr. Clay Marsh stressed that threats from the coronavirus haven’t gone away. The number of people hospitalized in the state with COVID-19 has increased by 50 in just the last week.

Life may be returning to the way it was before the pandemic, but new strains of COVID-19 are just as contagious as the measles.

During Gov. Jim Justice’s regular COVID-19 briefing, Dr. Clay Marsh stressed that threats from the coronavirus haven’t gone away. The number of people hospitalized in the state with COVID-19 has increased by 50 in just the last week, for example. And he noted that the ages of people getting sick and dying are getting older and older.

“We now have seen about 90 percent of people who have died with COVID-19 over the last month or two be over 65 years old,” he said. “So it’s really pushing out to our older population. And that’s why it’s so critically important that we have people stay up to date with their vaccines.”

Marsh said current variants are up to 170 times more infectious than the initial coronavirus. He noted that nationally, only about 31 percent of Americans over 65 have gotten their updated COVID-19 booster shot.

“The COVID-19 virus continues to mutate at a relatively rapid rate,” Marsh said. “And because of that mutation, it’s constantly making new changes in its genetic structure.”

Marsh explained that BA.5, which the Omicron booster is directed against, was, at the time, the most infectious form of COVID-19 that we had seen. And it compared with the level of infectiousness of the measles virus, which is one of the most infectious viruses ever measured.

These new variants, particularly the BQ.1.1 variant has been assessed and is found to be about seven times more infectious than the BA.5 variants, and about 170 times more infectious than the initial variant from Wuhan, China.

“Despite the fact that more and more people have some form of immunity from getting vaccinated, or being infected and recovering from that infection, we know that these new variants are so infectious, that even being previously infected and recovered, or even having gotten your COVID vaccines is no longer an absolute guarantee that you will not be infected by these new variants,” he said.

But Marsh stressed that the vaccine still protects most people from serious illness.

“There’s a recent paper that came out of Harvard, which looked at all the states and looked at the current risk of either getting infected, reinfected, or having more severe complications and deaths, and West Virginia was number one on their modeling risk state group,” he said. “So it’s really important for us not to let down our guard.”

Accuracy Of COVID Tests, Numbers Raises Concern

Gov. Jim Justice and coronavirus czar Dr. Clay Marsh said during Monday’s COVID-19 briefing that the state may be undercounting the real number of COVID-19 cases in the state.

With close to 2,000 new COVID-19 cases in the state Monday, state officials are concerned that the real number of total cases is higher.

Gov. Jim Justice and coronavirus czar Dr. Clay Marsh said during Monday’s COVID-19 briefing that the state may be undercounting the real number of COVID-19 cases in the state.

Both mentioned the prevalence of home testing as the reason.

Marsh said it is possible to have COVID-19, but have a negative result on an at-home test, and therefore advised West Virginians to seek out the more robust PCR tests.

“Although these rapid tests are really very good, they’re not absolutely 100 percent sensitive and specific for people who might have COVID,” he said. “We very much suggest for people who have symptoms that could be consistent with COVID, even if you have negative rapid tests, consider going and getting a PCR test, a genetic test.”

PCR tests are more accurate because they amplify genetic material so that even a small amount of coronavirus genes in the patient’s sample can be detected.

Antigen tests, as the name implies, test for antigens which are the portion of the virus that the immune system recognizes to create antibodies.

West Virginia ended its public testing program at the end of June, but Marsh said PCR tests are still available at pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, and county health departments.

Marsh emphasized the importance of accurate testing given the fast onset and high infection rate of the omicron variants of COVID-19.

“We know that for this particular type-form of COVID-19, the symptoms come on much faster, and people are infectious much faster, as few as two to three days people can be infectious,” Marsh said. “So be cognizant, even if you do have even symptoms of sinus etc., please go ahead and test yourself. And if you are negative by rapid tests and those symptoms continue to get worse, please go get a PCR test.”