Dr. Matthew A. Clark
Position: La Plata County Health Watch

Vaccine crucial for protecting young children from COVID-19

Many parents of young children have been anxiously awaiting authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for those younger than 5. Their wait is over. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration acte...

As cases rise, expanding COVID-19 vaccine access will help

Where do we stand with COVID-19 vaccinations? I have been fielding many questions in the past couple of months about the national COVID-19 vaccine strategy. To put things in perspective, we ...

Mental health care a key aspect of pandemic recovery

I’ve been talking and writing recently about the indirect health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past two years, COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virushas had a profound ...

Pandemic stress affected our daily health choices

In February, I discussed the broad spectrum of indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual and public health. These range from impacts on mental health to accessing chronic dise...

The indirect effects of the pandemic are serious

While the direct effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been substantial, including infections, hospitalizations and deaths, the indirect effects are no less significant. The pandemic has di...

Long COVID affects many people who get virus

You may have heard it referred to as post-COVID-19, long-hauler syndrome or long COVID. The official title of the condition is Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, or PASC. SARS-CoV-...

Despite omicron, reasons for hope in fight against COVID-19

If you are like me, you woke up the day after Thanksgiving with more than a turkey hangover. Scientists in South Africa had discovered the most recent variant of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that ...

Opioids: The other surging epidemic

There is an epidemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans and has recently been surging throughout the country. I’m not talking about COVID-19. It is the opioid epidemic. The opioi...

Booster COVID-19 vaccines will boost immunity

The single best tool in our COVID-19 public health toolbox is vaccination. Currently, more than 190 million Americans are fully vaccinated, representing 57.5% of the U.S. population. Meanwh...

Expanding use of vaccines an effective strategy to fight COVID-19

Safe and effective vaccines continue to be our single best defense against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Since the early summer, the delta variant of the virus has been the dom...

COVID-19 precautions crucial at schools

With the COVID-19 delta variant is surging in nearly every part of the United States, but most especially in those parts with high rates of unvaccinated people, it is time to regroup, take a...

Real world conditions prove COVID-19 vaccines’ effectiveness

COVID-19 vaccines have changed the landscape of the pandemic. For the tens of millions of Americans who have been fully vaccinated, the risk of disease and especially the risk of severe dis...