today on getting answers. >> the world will likely have its first trillionaire in a decade. an anti-poverty group warns that is not good news and predicts a divisive decade with dire consequences for many of us . and it's martin luther king junior day, the author of a biography on the assassinated

civil rights leader, believes americans are missing the point of the king holiday. but first, exactly how contagious is covid these days? and why is it that some people can avoid catching it even if they live with someone who has the virus? you're watching, getting answers . i'm kristen sze. thanks for joining us. so how come some people can evade covid even if they are in close contact with it? that is one of the most common questions that doctors keep getting from patients. joining us live now to talk more about the mystery of transmission and the latest efforts to come up with a universal vaccine, stanford infectious diseases researcher doctor abraar karan. doctor karan, nice to see you. >> nice to see you. >> so you say the question you get most often is how come this person i live with has covid and though i sleep in the same room, i manage to avoid it. is there a simple answer to that question? >> yeah, it definitely is the question that i get the most often. i think it can be very

confusing for people because they're hearing that this is a very contagious virus, but then at the same time, they were exposed to somebody that had it and they didn't get infected. so i think it's reasonable to have this question, um, the simple explanation is that infectious disease transmission is very complicated. and when i think about it, i think about a few different factors. so i think about the infected person, the susceptible people around that person and the environment that they're in. and all of those different factors play in to the risk that somebody actually gets infected and get sick as opposed to just getting exposed. so as we walk around in the day, we're exposed to pathogens all the time. different types of bacteria, different types of viruses. our immune system stops. most of those from causing us to actually get sick. when you're with someone that has covid, though and you live with them, you're going to be exposed to a lot more virus. if they're shedding the virus. and so that's where your immune system can come into play and help. so if you've recently been infected, you'll have the antibodies. if you've recently been vaccinated, you'll have antibodies. and also there's another component of our immune system the cellular side. and

there you have memory that from prior infections as well that can protect you and prevent you from getting sick. so that's the sort of basic overview. but there's more nuances to that. >> right? so it sounds like if you're overall generally pretty healthy, that helps you. it sounds like if you recently had vaccinated that helps you. are there other factors in the environment that you can control or alter that could also help protect you? >> absolutely. so imagine if you're the sick person. if you're wearing a high filtration mask like an n95 or a can 95 or a surgical mask as well, you will prevent a lot of the virus from getting out into the air. a lot of it will get trapped in the mask. um, and that's particularly because the mask, these masks have electrostatic charge. so they trap small particles, cloth masks don't. and so they're not quite as good for that. now, whatever small amount gets out into the air and you know, it would be a lot easier if we could see it. like, imagine like a green cloud of, you know, gas in the air. then you would know that, okay, i

don't want to inhale too much of this either. if i'm the person that's not yet sick. so wearing a mask again, the same types of high filtration masks can reduce the amount that you inhale and so the fewer particles uh- of pathogen that get into your body, the lower the chance that you're actually going to get a full blown infection as opposed to just getting exposed. the other factor is air quality. so air filtration. so if you have a hepa filter or you have a box fan with a merv filter that can also trap these particles and remove how much of it is in the air that you're breathing, or if you open the window, you get fresh air coming in and infect that air going out. so those factors also would help. >> can i ask you if covid you think has gotten less contagious over time? >> i don't think it's gotten less contagious. so there's a couple of ways that we think about this. first, we look at what's happening with cases. so suddenly we have another rise in cases. even though we had a rise earlier in the, you know, the late summer. and so that for us as infectious disease epidemiologists, it gets us questioning why. so there's two possibilities. one is that the

virus is mutated to become more transmissible. so it binds to cells and enters them better or or that it has mutated to actually evade the immune response, um, such that even though we've been infected recently, it can still get around the immunity that we develop from the most recent strain. that's what we think is happening with this strain. looking at the way that this the mutations that are in place here, uh, there are some data suggesting that this strain can evade antibodies that we developed a prior strains. and that's probably the reason why, um, that this is happening now, even. and that's we're talking about jn1. but jn1 has continued to mutate also. and there are some mutations with j. and within jn1 now that are suggesting it's also becoming better at binding and entering cells. so both of these processes are going on where this gets extra tricky is that the vaccines that we got, the most updated ones from september were based on xb one five. that was an older omicron sub strain, and that's different than what's circulating now. they're actually very different. and so it remains to be seen how well

vaccines protect against this newer strain. >> right. right. i mean there is a general sense out there that people are less fearful of catching it, if you will. right. whether it's because they have been infected before or vaccinated. but i want to ask you, there will be a future biggie, a nother pandemic, and given that i know stanford is working on a universal vaccine, what is a universal vaccine? how might it work? >> well, there's a couple of ways that this could work. so one is if you get a vaccine that's intranasal, for instance, where you're actually getting a good immune response from your mucosa, that actually can work to reduce the amount of transmission that happens. because we know that the current vaccines, they don't do a great job at preventing you from getting sick, but they prevent how sick you get. so we need vaccines that just stop transmission altogether. and a universal vaccine would be one where regardless of the types of common mutations that are happening, you retain a pretty durable immune response. um, now this is tricky because with rna viruses, they mutate very rapidly and there's no guarantee in which way these viruses

mutate. the next big mutation could actually make it more virulent, where it causes more severe disease. it could make it more transmissible. there's really no guarantee viruses act in the ways in which they want. there's a lot of randomness in that as well. so you know, it's i wish i had more reassuring news. uh, the, the one reassuring point is that because we've been exposed, our immune systems have an advantage that they didn't have back in 2020. >> right? right. all right. so hopefully you know, you get over more quickly. right your body starts defending you more quickly and all that. um speaking of changes, the oakland unified school district today sent out new covid guidance following the california department of public health's move last week. it does away with the five day mandatory isolation period that many companies still follow. so let's take a look at this. right. um, the advice seems to be more symptoms based rather than diagnosis based. in terms of staying home. you can see that staying home until fever has gone for 24 hours until symptoms are mild and improving. i mean,

these are things that we hear before, whether it's flu or any other kinds of illness. so do you think this makes good sense? >> so i think it makes sense for a couple reasons. as we know with public health, you have to meet people where they are so you can put out guidance. but if no one follows it, then it doesn't really matter. so the contingencies on that guidance is it is symptom based, but they recommend wearing a mask. and the reason is that for those ten days after you know, you are going to shed, everyone will shed virus and be contagious for some some period of time. it'll be a little bit different between different people for various reasons. now if you just follow that guidance and don't wear a mask, then you very well could be going out while you're still contagious. and one thing that we know is that the relationship between when you start having symptoms and how contagious you are has changed since the beginning. so if you remember, in the beginning of covid, people were contagious before they showed symptoms. it was actually the day that symptoms started that they were the most contagious. now it's a little bit different. we have studies showing that actually a few days after you start to show symptoms is when your viral load is highest. and so that's that's

different. and part of the reason why is that the symptoms are your immune response kicking in. and so it's also preventing the virus from really um growing in your body as fast. and we know this from studies that have looked at people symptoms and then measured how much contagious virus they could grow in, like a laboratory setting. so i think it's important for people to know that, uh, you know, it can be a little bit tricky, but wearing a mask is a good way to prevent transmission. >> all right, well, before we let you go real quickly, how do you think we can get through this winter? best practices in terms of staying healthy? because as we know, covid, flu and rsv are all still out there. oh, yeah. >> i think the key is that if you're if you're sick and you're able to stay home, you should do that. if you're sick and you're really not able to stay home and you have to go somewhere, you should wear a mask. i was just traveling recently. i was on a flight where a lot of people were sneezing and coughing and pretty much none of them were wearing masks. um, i noticed the same thing in some public transport that was really crowded. and i think that people have to remember, you know, it's

very there's a very simple thing you can do, um, at least in terms of wearing a high filtration mask when you're out and about, that could really save someone else's life or save someone else a trip to the hospital and the more we really internalize that and think of this in in a community sense, the more you know, we'll all be better off. >> thank you so much. always appreciate talking with you. >> thanks so much. >> coming up next, the world's first trillionaire experts say it's not that far off, but that is bad news for billions of us. find out why and what's to come if the income gap continues

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feeling like they're getting poorer, while the super rich are getting richer. they may be right. according to a new projection from oxfam, a global organization that seeks to end poverty and injustice. joining us live now is rebecca riddell, oxfam america's economic and racial justice policy lead. thank you so much for joining us . really appreciate it, rebecca. >> my pleasure. thanks for having me. >> so i know oxfam does this annual assessment of global economic inequalities. one finding is the world could have its first trillionaire within a decade. now, correct me if i'm wrong, but 1 trillion is a thousand times greater than 1 billion, right? >> math sounds good to me, but i agree it's an astounding figure. >> i mean, there was a time not too long ago when we thought, wow, one person having $1 billion. that's crazy. this i can't even wrap my head around, put $1 trillion in further context for us. what is that? i mean, compared to gross domestic

product, compared to other things? >> yeah. um, well, you know, one way to think about it is, uh, the us gross domestic domestic product is about $26 trillion. so for just one person to have $1 trillion, it's kind of hard to conceive of. um, but it is a great time to be a billionaire or an aspiring trillionaire. certainly. >> it certainly is. let's take a look at why, when we look at the top five richest in the world right now, and some of these names, you'll recognize, number one, elon musk at 230 billion. bernard arnault and family. that's the louis vuitton family at 182 billion. jeff bezos, larry ellison, mark zuckerberg, mark zuckerberg rounding out the top five. but you say they're actually even wealthier than that now. in fact, a lot wealthier since the pandemic. right >> yeah. we looked at what's happened to their fortunes since 2020, and they've actually more than doubled. and overall,

billionaires are $3.3 trillion richer now than they were in 2020, with their wealth growing at three times the rate of inflation, showing they're really the big winners of a global economy that's built to redistribute wealth upward. which is why at this rate, we're going to see our first trillionaire within a decade, i see okay, but let me ask you this, because if it's all being lifted, all of us, everyone in every socioeconomic group, then you might look at it and go, that's just more wealth being created. >> or perhaps it's inflation and it's a good thing and not a problem, but what is happening in the middle or on the bottom end? yeah yeah. >> unfortunately, you know what we see is that we face a real inequality crisis. so while billionaire fortunes have taken off since 2020, during the same time, nearly 5 billion people or 60% of the world's population has become poorer, their wealth has fallen. and honestly, i mean, when you step back, it makes sense in a lot of ways. for most people around the world and the people who aren't in the 1, the decade's been pretty

hard. it opened with the pandemic, the devastated lives and economies. then add to that the challenges of a prolonged cost of living crisis, climate breakdown and war. and so we see progress against poverty has largely stalled. and we found that globally, the wages of over 800 or nearly 800 million workers have failed to keep up with inflation. they've lost 1.5 trillion over the last two years. >> so i know, you know, as voters go to their caucuses in iowa today, a lot of the polls show bread and butter issues, economic issues are top, you know, in terms of importance to a lot of voters. what are the political ramifications when you have this kind of phenomenon happening where the top is getting spikier right, but very small number, and then you have a wider bottom at the base where people don't feel like they can afford their basics. >> yeah. you know, i mean, we are in many ways living in globally a gilded age, right. like it's been manufactured over at least the last 40 years. and corporate power is in many ways at the heart of that. the good

news is policies that are being put in place today are showing that you can make cracks in that global gilded age. you know, we've seen it here in the us that wages and wealth have picked up a bit in recent years, and that's great. that still needs to be understood in context. uh, many people are needlessly suffering. but, you know, we are optimists, that the types of policies that can create a more equal future, um, they're known, they're practical , they can be put into place, and some of them are already, you know, really helping to share prosperity. what what kinds of things are you talking about? >> i mean, the easiest ones that come to mind are taxing the wealthy more or taxing big corporations more. but as you tell me, some of the potential solutions i know we have, davos, the economic forum happening very soon. right. and you're releasing this report. i imagine you want the policymakers to look at that and really consider what can be done. so what are some of the solutions. >> yeah. you know i mean broadly speaking oxfam is an organization that's been working on poverty and inequality for decades. uh, what we have

learned from our experience and what the research shows is that we need a new era of public action. you know, it's really key that public power reign in kind of corporate power and extreme billionaire wealth. we need governments to shape the market to be fair, we need to break up monopolies. we need to empower workers. we certainly need to tax corporations and the ultra rich who have really waged a very successful war on taxation in recent decades. and crucially, we also need to embrace and invest in public services. >> so if we don't do all that and if we do have more trillionaires, what's the impact ? why should we care about that? >> well, you know, inequality, it it hurts all of us. >> uh, it is associated with higher rates of crime, um, with, uh. it exacerbates climate change. so we have research that shows that the very richest are, you know, disproportionately responsible for creating the climate crisis. it's actually associated with higher deaths as well. we have research showing that it's, you know, associated with a death every four seconds.

so inequality has, you know, broad negative benefits in societies. and in addition, you really have to think about billionaire wealth and poverty as two sides of the same coin. so it's not until we address extreme wealth that we're going to be able to end poverty and really have a more equal society. >> rebecca riddell, oxfam america's economic and racial justice policy lead. thank you so much for coming on and explaining the new projections to us. >> thank you. >> coming up next, honoring mlk today, as we look back at doctor king's life and legacy, are most of us missing the point of the holiday? one biographer says yes. and explains what is the point

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photographer and the author of a critically acclaimed book on doctor king, released last year. joining us live now is jonathan, age best selling author of six books, including most recently, king alive. jonathan, thanks for joining us today. >> my pleasure. >> in a recent interview, i saw you expressed that americans are missing the point of the king holiday. we treat it like a day to celebrate king, explain this. >> well, we treat it like a day. um, like most other holidays. it's a day off from work. it's a day to get discounts on products, but more troublingly. we focus only on the parts of his message that make us comfortable. i have a dream. let's judge one another by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. and we forget the radical call that king was issuing to the country to really fundamentally change our economic balances so that we eliminate inequality, that we provide care for the poor. he was a radical and part of the consequences of this holiday is

that we have watered down his message. so i'm hoping that people will not only read the i have a dream part of the speech today, but read the first half of that speech. the part that he wrote before he began improvising, where he talks about some of the deep economic woes that afflicted this country, as well as the racism that persisted. yeah. >> in fact, the interview segment we had before you came on talked about the wealth inequality, right? with the we're probably going to have our first trillionaire in the world in the next ten years that the top five richest are just incredibly wealthy, while 5 billion people have gotten poorer. i guess if that is all part of it, if those are all components of his dream, what should we do? it sounds like there is some responsibility action that's needed to make the dream happen. >> well, king believed that we were all in this together and that we had to look out for one another. that was part of the very core of his religious belief, and he felt like he was preaching to the nation, preaching to save the soul of the nation. and you know, it's worth remembering that he was planning another campaign just before he was assassinated. and

he called it the poor people's campaign. he was going to bring thousands of people to washington, dc and stay there until we agreed to make fundamental changes in guaranteed income, guaranteed jobs, and really began looking out for one another in a way that he felt like we were not doing adequately. so i think we ought to remember the king holiday by thinking about what we can do to change the country. and, um, the fact that we have to think about the inconvenient king, the king who was the troublemaker, the radical, and honor him, as well as the, as the i have a dream man. i also want to ask you about something else that he said aside from the i have a dream speech that is often quoted. >> even president obama often quoted this the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. do you believe that? and is that ordained or necessarily so? >> i do believe that the arc of the universe bends toward justice. i believe we've seen enormous progress in our

lifetime. in my lifetime, and in the years since king's passing. but the thing that king and obama have pointed out is that the arc does not necessarily bend by itself, that it requires all of us to lean on it, to pry on it to use our crowbars and our strength and our voices, whatever we've got to make sure that we're bending it because sometimes when you look at it up close, it might not appear that it's bending. it takes a long time, and it requires you know, eternal vigilance. and that's what king said. we must never lose hope. we must stay awake to change. and we must remain eternally vigilant. >> well, one of the tools that we do have for change is in america, of course, is our democratic form of government. which doctor king had often pointed to as our biggest strength and gift to the world. but when you look at it today, of course, he's not around anymore. but when you look at what we have now with bitter, bitter partizan and maybe a lot of critics will say more grandstanding than actual problem solving. um, what do you think he would think? >> well, king believed in the

power of democracy. he he led the greatest grass movement roots movement in american history. and it was not a movement designed to tear down the country. it was a it was a grassroots movement to join the experiment of democracy and to make it more complete, to make it more embracing of all people. and i think what he would say today is that we have to continue to vote. we have to continue to get voters registered. we have to push back on the efforts to make voter registration more difficult. where you see people eroding, fighting against the rights to vote today because they're afraid that they might lose office if too many people vote. we need to be more inclusive democracy. and i think king would be fighting for that tooth and nail today. >> yeah, well, look, before we let you go, though, you know, you talked about the need to take action to bend that arc, if you will. could one person or a small group actually affect change enough to make a difference? because i think there's a lot of disengagement right now. feeling a sense of hopelessness. >> there is this sense of

hopelessness. and i think it's obvious that we can all make a difference. we all have to make a difference. and that was king's ultimate message. you know, here's a man who was shot at. he was jailed dozens of times. his home was bombed three times. the united states government, the same government that honors him with a national holiday today, was surveilling him and attempting to drive him to suicide, attempting to break up his marriage. and he didn't give up. he didn't lose hope in this country and in the power of democracy. and if he could continue to believe, then i think we all have to continue to do our part, however small it may be, and we'll leave it at that message. >> jonathan i, author of king a life. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> and a reminder, folks, you can get our live newscast, eight breaking news, weather and more with our abc7 bay area streaming tv app. you can download

results or just rhetoric. californians deserve a senator who is going to deliver for them every day and not just talk a good game. adam schiff. he held a dangerous president accountable. he also helped lower drug costs, bring good jobs back home, and build affordable housing. now he's running for the senate. our economy, our democracy, our planet. this is why we fight. i'm adam schiff, and i approve this message.

five, followed by after the game and a special edition of 80s and 70s. at nine. tonight the iowa caucuses. will this be donald trump's first big step? and the race for second place. why it's so crucial. this deadly winter storm across several states, new york city and the east bracing tonight. what's coming this evening? first the big chill in iowa. record windchills. as low as 30 degrees below zero. they are all urging voters to brave the record cold and to caucus for them. donald trump coming into tonight a