today on getting answers. alzheimer's takes a toll on

patients, but a new report out today shows it also takes a huge hit and toll on caregivers. we'll dive into the ever more common reality and could a high school robotics team put east palo alto on the world map? it could happen with that team going to the world championships, but those brilliant kids could use your help. but first, measles, tuberculosis and a cough that won't go away. a plethora of new health warnings. what you need to know. you're watching, getting answers. i'm kristen sze. thanks for joining us. alameda county health officials are warning that people may have been exposed to measles if they dined this past weekend at a san leandro restaurant. officials say the possible exposure occurred at sons of liberty ale house on saturday, between 4:45 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. this is the second warning this month. 300 people were possibly exposed to measles on march 5th at the uc davis emergency room after a child with the virus was treated

there. joining us live now to talk more about the rise in infectious diseases in the bay area and california, ucsf infectious diseases specialist doctor peter chin-hong. doctor chin-hong, nice of you to join us today. >> thanks for having me on, kristen. >> all right. so people want to know how soon after exposure can symptoms start to show with measles. >> yeah. so typically it's anywhere between 7 and 21 days. and that's important because if, for example, there's a kid with measles in the school and other kids have been exposed who are unvaccinated or undervaccinated, they need to stay home for three weeks. and that's been controversial in florida. but that's the cdc guidance. >> yeah. that long incubation period of 7 to 21 days. that means a lot of people can be going around exposing people because they don't know it. they don't see symptoms. and i can see why it's so infectious. but what are some of the symptoms to look out for? >> yeah. so some of the symptoms are really, flu like symptoms. so a high fever very high. but

we call it the four c's. so a cough coryza, which is another word for head cold. so congestion, conjunctivitis or reddened eyes and these spots on your cheek called koplik's spots. >> okay. so we put some of these up as well as possible symptoms diarrhea. >> and of course you get the rash after which is really the way that a lot of people recognize it. >> oh okay. and what are some of the complications. what could result from a measles infection. >> so after measles infection you can either get, you know, pneumonia in the lungs, brain, involvement. called encephalitis. and there's a long covid version of measles called, that can happen up to seven years after measles, it's not very common, but it's caused by persistent inflammation. could it be fatal? yes, it in about, to 2 in every thousand, people who get it, actually die. and,

you know, it is one of the big, global killers around the world, mainly due to, vaccination. >> i mean, didn't we eradicate it? that's how it was reported for decades, right? or at least here in the us. what happened? >> yeah. so in 2000, we actually called it eradicated. but what happened over time is that, because the rest of the world was still having measles and because more and more people were not vaccinating kids, the herd immunity dropped below, the vaccination rate dropped below 95, 95% of the magic number for measles, where you need that number to keep everyone protected. and because of more foreign travel, etc, we've been seeing a rise in cases, over time in the united states. >> all right. so what is the vaccine schedule for this? when do you start giving a child this measles vaccine? >> so you typically give it around, age one and a 12 months,

and then at, 4 to 5 years, the first vaccine is about 93% effective. and by the time you get the second, it's about 97% effective. >> okay. so who are most at risk? i take it unvaccinated folks. but you know, who else? >> yeah. so, really unvaccinated . so it's really not a cause for concern or under-vaccinated that also includes kids under the age of 12 because they can't get vaccinated yet, but also people are immune compromised, we always worry about that, population as well, because they may lose their immunity to the vaccination. and that's why we depend on everyone else to protect the most vulnerable in our society. got it real quickly. >> how close do you have to be to someone to catch it? >> measles is one of the most transmissible, infectious diseases. you don't even have to be in the room. you can leave the room with the person with measles. you can enter that room

. and if it's within 2 or 3 hours, you can get measles. >> all right, well, look, it's clear. get your kids vaccinated, this is serious. california is also grappling with a substantial rise in tuberculosis right now. tb, which i understand is bacterial, right. and attacks the lungs. so, doctor chin-hong, santa clara, alameda and san francisco are seeing the second, third and fourth largest number of cases in the state. why >> yeah. so, you know, that's a great question. what what happened with tb is that, two things. first, during covid, a lot of people with, chronic cough symptoms, you know, they may be coughing up blood, losing weight, didn't seek medical attention. so there was a delay in diagnosis. and the second reason is that public health has been underfunded for the last few decades. and really, this reflects, lack of investment in public health, in our community. >> okay. so how is this spread and, and, you know, what does it

do to you? and i guess you know, how do you prevent it? and what do we need to do here? >> yeah. so it's spread, really by the airborne route. so very similar to measles, actually. so that's why it's transmissible, it's highly transmissible, and, i think that there isn't a great prevention except for screening so that, you know, people might have gotten a quantiferon blood test which looks for antibodies against tb or a skin test called a ppd or other skin tests, which looks, again at an antibody response to tb. that's recommended for people who are immigrating into the country because tb, is much more common outside of the us, but also people who work in healthcare like me, people who are incarcerated, etc. >> all right. i also want to turn to, you know, this cough that people are seeing. i mean, some some of them, you have crossover symptoms. so it's kind of hard to tell what you have.

but a lot of people are seeing a lingering cough reportedly. are you seeing that as a doctor in your patients? >> yes, totally. it seems that almost everybody has a cough right now. and again, it's kind of tough because coughing is such a no no in society right now. a lot of people get nervous when someone's coughing next to them. but that cough that you might be seeing in someone, it's likely or could not even be infectious because it's called a post viral cough. but there are also other reasons as well. >> so then what would you do then, if you're not sure? and at what point would you say, okay, go see a doctor. >> yeah. so it's, you know, up to 25 to 50% of people after a viral infection, say the common cold, even can have a lingering cough that can last up to six weeks. so, you know, if your cough is lingering after six weeks, if the cough comes with something else, like we talked about tb, weight loss, night sweats, see somebody earlier, you know, but definitely after six weeks, you should see

someone because again, other causes can include, reflux. so that can cause a chronic cough. allergies can cause a chronic cough, but there may be some other serious conditions, malignancy, etc. so again, think about what comes with the cough. if the cough is by itself, you probably don't need to worry within that six week period. but after six weeks think about it. okay? >> i know right now i have that annoying kind of allergy tickly cough, you know, a little post-nasal drip and just kind of dry. and so but i will keep that in mind. thank you. before we let you go real quickly, i want to touch on something that i think a lot of you doctors think it's pretty. i don't know if it's a game changer, but it's certainly a boon to have this, which is a colon cancer test and it's a blood test. tell us about that. >> yeah. so it was published in the new england journal of medicine about the within the last week or so. it's a blood test that looks for dna of the tumors. so tumors in the colon, shared dna into the, bloodstream

that could be detected by this blood test, it detected it close to 90% of the time, which was amazing. and the reason why it's amazing is because 1 in 3 people are not getting colon cancer screening. it's really a bummer. you know, you have to smear a stool at home on a stool card or get a colonoscopy and drink all of that prep. so it's not surprising that that number is, so high of unscreened individuals that leads to the fact that, we're seeing a lot more colon cancer in the united states, particularly in those who are under 55 years old. >> so when do we think this will become fda approved? >> well, this year actually is expected to be fda approved. it will be another option for people to do screening or, and, you know, i think we'll go a long way because the best screening test is actually the one you actually do to do. >> right. not so unpleasant and, you know, scary. all right. doctor peter chin-hong, thank you. great information as always

. >> thanks so much. >> coming up next, the fight against alzheimer's and the toll it takes a new report looks at the struggles caregivers face and how it also impacts their health. more on that are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with hr positive, her2 negative metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole. ibrance may cause low white blood cell counts that may lead to serious infections. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs. both of these can lead to death. tell your doctor if you have new or worsening chest pain,

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and their caregivers face. more than 7 million americans are living with the disease and the report by the alzheimer's association found it's taking a real toll on their caregivers, saying their role is stressful. joining us live now to discuss this is elizabeth edgerly, executive director of the northern california and northern nevada chapter of the alzheimer's association.

elizabeth, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me, kristen. >> look, you know, i know we often look at alzheimer's patients and what they go through, but rarely do we really put the lens in the spotlight on their caregivers. and there are more and more caregivers, right? because there are more and more patients. >> there are every year, the number of patients grows, and right along with it grows the number of people who are caring for them. and i, i know so many people who are in this situation. i myself was a caregiver for my mother for many years, all the way across the country. and what we've been learning is as these numbers keep growing, we're hearing from caregivers that they struggle to get the help that they need and that they're disproportionately likely to have issues themselves , whether it's stress or other health conditions that need attention at the same time as they're trying to help a loved one with alzheimer's or another type of dementia, give us a little more insight into that.

>> what kind of stress and how has it manifested, and then what kind of physical ailments does that in turn lead to? >> what we hear from caregivers is often they struggle to figure out what they're dealing with in their loved one. all too often, people go undiagnosed when they have alzheimer's or another type of dementia. so for many families, they're really unsure of what they're dealing with. but even when they get a diagnosis and start to learn about how the disease may progress, they struggle to find resources to help them. whether it's from their health system, their doctor, uh- they may not get their questions answered, and they may also have a hard time figuring out where to turn for help. that's where the alzheimer's association we work 24 over seven to make sure people can get answers, because what we're seeing is they do get very stressed. it's hard to sometimes just take care of ourselves. and it's that much

harder to care for someone who's experiencing cognitive difficulties. right? >> right. and of course, i don't know if this is causal, but in your report, you did note that dementia caregivers have higher rates of chronic conditions, right? what are some of them? >> they do. so they're more likely to experience stroke or heart disease, diabetes, a whole host of chronic illnesses that require attention in and of themselves. and what we know is that being in a stressful circumstance where perhaps we're not able to eat a healthy diet or exercise can make those conditions even worse. and we do see this on a daily basis in caregivers and you noted, depression is also a big factor for caregivers. absolutely. caregivers are more likely to experience depression. they're also more likely to experience challenges with sleep. and so you add all these factors together. and it presents a very difficult situation. and

caregivers need help navigating this situation. and that's where we're really working hard to see if we can do a better a better job. from the moment someone is seeking a diagnosis until they get a diagnosis and making sure that the family knows what's out there to help them, right? >> i mean, look, it seems like there needs to be a broader societal solution to this one that involves, you know, your agency, but also the government and perhaps health insurance. can you talk about how all that needs to work together? >> you are exactly right is what we need is a coordinated approach. whenever someone is facing this, what they need are some answers and a plan, and a partner and that's why we're working so hard to have government and health systems have what are called dementia care navigators. someone who reaches out to you proactively and says, i can help and i can

tell you where to turn now and where to turn next and how to progress as a disease progresses . >> yeah, i mean, big stressful part of it is just to find the information you need, right? to be able to be a good caregiver. so let me ask you this. why do we think alzheimer's numbers are going up? it's to the point now where it kills more people than breast and prostate cancer combined. >> it does. and the biggest factor is that we are living longer. and so as the population ages, so do the number of people with alzheimer's and other dementia. they it grows. and so what we're seeing is that as these numbers increase and as we wait for disease modifying treatments to really emerge in a bigger way, we're seeing the number of people dying from alzheimer's going up. so the percentage is have more than doubled, almost tripled the number of people dying from alzheimer's. whereas at the same time, we're seeing improvements

in cancer survival rates. and so we're seeing more people with alzheimer's. and we haven't found our first survivor yet. and so it's so important to fund research and make sure that we do have opportunity to change the progression of these diseases. >> yeah, i mean, there's some promising research on the horizon, but it can't come soon enough for folks seeking more information, whether it's medically or for caregivers. where can they go to as a resource? >> please? rejected the alzheimer's association. our website is als.org, and we also have a 24 over seven 800 number which is one 800 272 3900. and we're there to help people figure out where to turn, where to get the help they need 24 hours a day. >> all right. elizabeth edgerly, executive director of the northern california northern nevada chapter of the alzheimer's association, thank you so much for your time today. >> thank you. >> up next, a bay area robotics

team is taking their talents all the way to the world championship. a star student and the team's coach will join us next to talk a

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reputations in the tech world, but maybe not anymore. a robotics team made up of high schoolers from the east palo alto area has just dominated the silicon valley regional competition and earned a trip to the world championships next month in houston. the churro bots could use your support to continue their cinderella season . joining us live now is the head coach of the churro bots, greg corsetto and team member angel fernandez. congratulations you two. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having us. yeah. thank you. >> so for those who don't know, what is this? robotics competition. you guys just crushed it. who wants to take it, i'll take that one, so, this

is a part of the first robotics program. it is a high school, competitive robotics program. it's, international in scope, there was at silicon valley regional, there was about 40 teams competing, for the chance to go to the world championships in, in april in houston. and so we there are alliances that, compete against each other three teams per alliance. and so we were on the winning alliance. and were able to, to, punch our ticket basically to houston through that, experience. >> that is so awesome. and on how do you go by angel or angel, and he's fine and he's fine, okay. and he's fine. tell me. no, i'm just kidding, so tell me you lead the is it the electrical team or are you the coding software team, or what do you lead? you lead something. >> yeah, i am the electrical sub lead.

>> okay, so tell me what you had to do. and, like, drink competition, you know, how did you make sure it all worked? i understand you also encountered a few challenges that you had to overcome. so tell us about that. >> so during the competition, what we had to do was i was basically mostly in the pits with along with everyone else. it was like me and like maybe three other students and what we do, we would make sure that the robot was working fine, any problems with the robot? we would make sure that we'd fix it up before. like we'd have to go into the next round of the competition. and so there was like this big problem where our plexi was starting to break. and so what we did was that we had to, like, figure out a way with the help of, like, citrus circuits, we had to figure out a way to kind of just like, make sure that the arm stays in place and it doesn't break anymore. and luckily, we were able to do that and like, keep pushing forward and do our part in the competition. >> hey, that arm looks like it's doing just fine there. so good job there. and i know you have to, you know get it all working so the robot can complete all sorts of tasks that look

impossible, like maneuver the maze and throw the ball in and all that. so super proud of you. who who all are on this team? the churro bots and how did you guys come up with the name? because everyone in the newsroom wanted to know how you came up with the churro bots, yeah, i'll take that one too. so, who's on the team? so we have about 18 students, we're a community team, so we're we represent east palo alto. so any high schooler in east palo alto can, can join the team, and how we came up with the robot name, is that, about three years ago, we started bringing churro bots to our friday night practices, we started we started bringing churros to our friday night, our friday night practice. so one of our students kind of put together churros and then robots, and together we came up with this new word called churro bots. >> i love it, i love it. you know what, i coach my daughter's team one year in fl that's the junior high level. and we think i think we only had, like, crackers and cheese. so you know, i should have upped my

snack game and we would have had a better name as well. so that's awesome. but tell us about hope horizon epa, the group that runs this right. >> yeah. so we are, a program underneath, hope horizon, which is a nonprofit in east palo alto that's been it's been serving east palo alto, i think, about 40 years now. i think this was their 40th anniversary this year, so they support us. they supported us initially in we had an fll program like you were experiencing that we started with back in 2014. they hosted our fll teams in their site. at their site. they supported us financially and in other ways. and then when we branched off to start the high school team, they helped us set up our robotics shop, they support us financially every year and kind of with seed funding to get us going. and then our students fundraise from that from that point on, how speaking of fundraising, i know you guys need a little help because going to world's, you know, going to houston with all 18 plus the

coaches is not cheap. >> so tell us what you hope folks will do if they're watching this, so we ask you to like, please, like donate to us because this means a lot to us. this is like our first time that we've ever won. and like, this is the farthest we've ever made it. and the second we heard that we're going, we all started jumping. we all started screaming. it was the moment was like blissful. and it was it was just so amazing. gosh. >> okay, so i see you've got 16,000, but you need 40,000. so folks, you can check out the website there. hope horizon epa.com if you want to support the churro bots. can i just ask you on how before we go, what being on this team has given you what it's meant to you, what doors it's open for you? >> this team has for sure brought me a lot. it's taught me a lot of skills that i never thought i'd learn, it's taught me how to work well with others. it's taught me, like, what it's like to be part of a team. it's taught me not only like the technical skills of, like, how to wire robot and like how to

work with others. but it's also like, i've also made some like really good friendships there. like we don't hang out just during robotics. we hang out outside of robotics. and this it's like i would say it's i would recommend it to everyone to join. it's like it's really cool. >> they want to be on your team because the churro sound pretty good. angel fernandez and greg corsetto, congratulations to you guys. we are

i'll see you back here tomorrow tonight, breaking news. the police ambush. the prisoner's escape. the urgent manhunt right now. the fbi involved. also, the security breach. the man who took a pho