now, your health, your safety. this is abc 7 news. hi there, welcome to our daily special called "getting answers." we're asking experts your questions every day at 3:00 here to get answers for you in real time. today, we have our special correspondent, dr. alok patel with us. post your questions on facebook, youtube or check out our instagram stories. and the show always continues online. we do not take breaks there. we're also keeping an eye on a virtual town hall happening soon with the school superintendent, tony thurmond. he's expected to talk about the current state of public s. noameda, contra costa, marin, san mateo, santa clara and san francisco counties, the bay area counties, all said today that campuses will be closed through the rest of the

school year. so, that's june 2nd. kids not going back this year. so, when the conference starts, we will take you there live, virtually. but let's get to your special correspondent and mine, dr. alok patel. he is ready to answer your questions. dr. patel, thank you for joining us today. so much has happened since we last talked. >> so much. it's evolving day by day. >> it really is. so, i'm really glad you are here to unpack some of this for us. today, just in the past hour, i heard the cdc director said that u.s. coronavirus deaths could be much lower than the 200,000 predicted we were hearing a lot about last week. so, what do you make of this? >> what i make of that is that it's giving us proof that staying at home, sheltering in place and the physical distancing could actually work, because a large majority of the country is doing it.

now, the caveat is, we don't really know what's going to happen. it's just more of this promise that we need to double down. and we need to keep staying at home and we need to keep kind of flattening the curve as much as we can. and then we'll see what happens as we get more testing and as time continues. >> all right, i want to also ask you, seems like we're looking at a tale of two cities or two states, i should say. new york is starting to hit its peak, maximum number of deaths today, but governor newsom has said that our kufs has flattened, but that also means it's lengthened. so, what does that mean? >> well, first, i have to command commend governor newsom and every californian getting on top of the shelter in place game way sooner. the numbers support how it's worked. people are saying, when it comes to hitting the apex is that you're looking at the growth of cases day by day, which is how you can kind of predict the

curve is slowly flattening. now, what governor newsom meant said thatit's len out, means we may see cases, but it's going to be spread out over time. and that literally is a way to describe the flattened peak. because remember, we're trying to keep it underneath that max capacity. so, even if it's lengthened out over time but it's manageable, we'll be okay. >> okay. the video that we're showing right now you dr. patel, is people walking around locally in masks. of course, that is something, you know, the recommendation really came out end of last week and now we're all urged to be wearing masks all the time when we're out in public. how critical do you think that is in terms of the overall effort to prevent the spread? a. ttinthat.nkre a but the data that came out really showing that air boborne spread is what pushed the

recommendation to go on. remember, the masks can be any type of cloth barrier, but it has to fit your face well. and it's more important for us not to get other people from getting sick. and as always, the medical grade masks have to be reserved for front line health providers. for example, the n-95. no one in the public needs to be wen-95. those are for people in the front lines. >> you've been sending that message and it's so critical to keep talking about that. let's get to viewer questions. regina says, is it safe to wash my clothes in the community laundry room in my apartment building? >> that's a great question. because a lot of people still have to go to community areas if they live in a building or at work. and one important thing to note is, in a laundry room, in your building, you're in an enclosed space. you have possibly limited ventilati ventilation. and so, you can do your best to not be in there when there's

other people in there and perhaps the building is regulating that, as ell. but that's a really important indication to wear a mask. you have may be contagious with or without symptoms and also to be really cognizant, be aware of everything you are touching in that laundry room. the machine itself, detergent, whatever, the coin machine, , same rules apply. usi >> all right, here is kind of a new one, but i've been seeing that in the past couple of days, and that is the transfer -- i don't want to get to gross anybody out, but i think it's important to ask whether there's any transmission through feces, and i've seen discussion about sewage, as well. >> i think the reason that question about feces and can we pass this in our stool, the reason that's coming up is studies have shown that some of the virus can be detected in our stool. now, remember, that is the virus itself, it doesn't necessarily mean our stool is contagious, but i think the more important thing to address there is, we have some of the receptors for

the virus in our stomach, so, people can present with nausea, diarrhea and upset stomach and have covid-19, not necessarily just the cold or flu symptoms. >> all right. this one, i think, is also important, but i suspect the answer is kind of complicated, dr. patel, and that is brenda asking, have they determined whether a person can get covid-19 price. we have talked a lot about the testing process and i suspect we're not there yet with the testing to be able to answer that, can we? whether you can get it twice? >> well, we can make -- we can make a great scientific guess about this, and so, the majority of people in the scientific community do believe that once you get it once, you will build some immunity against it. now, the question remains, is how long does that immunity last, how effective is that immunity, does that mean you're never going to get it again, or you'll get a weakened version of it? but it's important to understand that with any infection you get out there, any infection, your

immune system is going to build antibodies against this. and those anti-bolds are literally designed for the same virus. so, your immune system is more prepared to attack the virus if it sees it again. hifda hopes is a really good treatment for people who are sick with this. >> the plasma of people who recovered can be used to aid those who are currently suffering tremendously from covid-19? >> you nailed it. that's exactly what it is. the thought is, by taking these antibodies from people who have recovered from this, who are purported immunity to this, you can give those antibodies to people who are sick in the hospital and who have symptoms and hopefully improve their course. there's a very small study looking at chinese patients and showed some ement, so, we're i clinical trials is l all right, what abouthe sting?anteddd whether that's getting a lot better. just on president trump's news conference about a half hour

ago, he mentioned that there are all these five-minute tests now that are happening, but is that the reality of what we're facing here? >> well, i think a lot is a very general term, because it really differs state by state. and even though we have tested our total number of tests is higher than other countries, we are not doing that well on tests per capita, on tests per person. and it is also important to note that when we give out the total number of tests, that doesn't tell us that's individual people being tested. if one person gets tested three times and somebody else gets tested once, that's four tests with two people. now, president trump is correct in saying that there's a variety of tests out there. there's a couple of tests which are point of care, they can be done at the bedside, you can get a result in three to five hours, and there's others which basically may be able to take a few more hours, but there's still a massive backlog in testing and we're seeing that

across the country. >> right. all right, dr. patel, we're going to take a short break on-air, but folks, if you are streaming, then the show never stops for you, we'll keep the questions going online, so, join the conversation on facebook metastatic breast cancer is relentless, but i'm relentless too. because every day matters. and having more of them is possible with verzenio, the only one of its kind proven to help you live significantly longer when taken with fulvestrant, regardless of menopausal status. and it's the only one of its kind you can take every day. verzenio + fulvestrant is approved for women with hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer whose disease has progressed after hormonal treatment. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. at first sign of diarrhea, call your doctor, start an anti-diarrheal, and drink fluids. before taking verzenio, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection. verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection that can lead to death. life-threatening inflammation of the lungs can occur.

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and we also got a discount on our earthquake insurance. if there is an earthquake. our house has a better chance of surviving in. meals a day, and get it through our free and reduced lunch program. >> all right, right now, this is the live virtual town hall by state school superintendent tony thurmond, talking about the support that the schools lending to school districts as it is now clear there will be no school for the rest of the school year let's listen in a little bit. >> all of our students, our parents and families, our educators, to everyone for your resilience, for continuing to go the effort that it takes to get through in these tough times. i know that it's not easy, but i believe that we can and we will achieve in california. the california department of education has since march 13th

provided guidance every week to california's 1,000 school districts, to give guidance on how to do all the things that i've said on distance learning, on providing meals, on child care, on dealing with issues on how our employees work in our schools and i'm proud of the efforts that my team, the california department of education, the governor's office and many have played together to address how labor and management work together in our schools. we have to all be in for california students, and i'm proud of the framework that we've helped to create that guides the conversation for labor and management and how we serve our students. every week, the california department of education will continue to provide training on how to provide distance learning. this is new for many of us, but not for all of us. this is the model that is taking place throughout all of our schools, not just in california, but for many throughout our country.

we simply cannot give up on california kids, and i'm proud to tell you that we can ensure that california students will be able to graduate high school inspite of the challenges that we're facing on the campuses where students attend. >> all right, this is a virtual town hall happening right now with state school superintendent tony thurmond. of course, he and the governor announced last week and now today joined by the six bay area counties in confirming that kids will not resume their school year this year. if you want to watch that, we're continuing to stream it on our web and our news app so you can watch that educational discussion there if you would like, talking about how the schools will ensure that students still learn during this time, relying on remote learning and how they're going to support schools and i want to bring back dr. patel, because the school superintendent touched on a very important point, which is, there's this divide in terms of who is still learning, right, with some wealthier school

districts moving seamlessly into remote learning, but same with this virus, because today i'm hearing about this racial and social economic divide in terms of who is at higher risk. frican-arica fe a >> oh, absolutely. i have to really quickly hit on the former point you made, and say that, you know, i am glad to hear that people are paying attention to the disparity in our school systems, especially given that 30 million children depend on school for food and education, the experience is totally different, so, that has to be a priority of ours moving forward. regarding african-americans, we are seeing some alarming numbers coming out. we're seeing in places like illinois and philadelphia a higher amount of cases in minority neighborhoods, and then the number that really struck people was coming out of michigan, where they found that even though african-americans make up about 14%, 15% the state's population, they're right now about 40% of the deaths from alarming numbers, ta

lot of factors involved, one of which could be that african-american tend to have a higher incident of hypertension, diabetes, certain types of heart disease, but this really is going to tap into social economic topics, like access to health care and testing. all this really playing a factor in getting the right care that you need at the right time. >> absolutely. and these are important for, you know, our government officials and public health officials to work together and doctors such as yourself to address. all right, i want to ask about -- linda's question on facebook, because i'm seeing a lot of this. actually, stella. it was reported that animals are getting covid-19. there's been reports of people getting rid of their pets for fear they can get it from the animals. can you please clear that up? and i'm asking this also because we saw over the weekend that there's a tiger that's now gotten covid-19. but you know, with household pets, you don't want to see people just discarding their pets.

>> no. first of all, that's heartbre heartbreaking and sad. >> yeah. >> and, you know, if people were afraid of getting a disease from their pets, they have to really ask themselves, are they protecting their pets when it comes to exposure? that logic doesn't make sense to me. as far as we know, there have been no cases in the united states of an animal giving coronavirus to a human. we haven't seen that. now, yes, the data coming out from the bronx zoo and showing that tiger getting infected has a lot of scientists, you know, questioning things right now, but another thing that people are saying that's of note, you know, these veterinary experts are saying, hey, it's really important to know that a big cat, a tiger, got this virus and we aren't hearing reports of all these dogs and cats across america falling really ill. because it's possible that the virus has a different effect depending on the animal it's in. so, it really just comes down to us waiting to see how this plays out. but animals, who persamericans

that's part of our family. can you treat them like any other part of our family and follow the same precautions, washing your hands, and making sure your animals are still getting outside, but keeping them safe. >> absolutely. here's another one. does the tb vaccine, tuberculosis, does that help protect against covid-19? >> as of now, there is no strong evidence to suggest that. there were a couple of things circulating around the internet that were talking about the immune response, but i would not put any claim based on that. our biggest priority right now is making sure we get a vaccine for this sars-cov-2sars-cov-2sa2 hopefully we'll have a vaccine in 12 to 18 months. >> all right. well, we certainly hope so. we have about 40 seconds left, but i want to ask you, those disinfectants, wipes or other products that says kills 99% of germs, number one, do they really, and then, also, does that mean we're protected against covid-19? >> not necessarily.

so, people have brought this topic up to me over and over again, they're like, hey, this is all natural, it's made with evything. you have to look at the ingredients and verify using the cdc or the environmental protection agency's website to look to see if those ingredients are actually going to kill sars-cov-2. just because it says kills 99% of germs, doesn't mean it kills anything that we're worried about. so, your best bet is to stick with what we know works. either an alcohol-based cleaner, bleach or something on those websites. >> all right. good advice. >> we found examples of this over the weekend. >> really? >> well, thank you so much. >> we found one very popular cleaner that doesn't work. >> okay, you can tell me the brand afterwards. no, actually, thank you so much. we'll take this conversation onto facebook now. we're going to take a short break on the air and check in with dr. patel on our streaming

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. all right, we are back with dr. alok patel talking about covid-19, and as we talk about the need for more data, right, i mean, if you are going to find solutions, you first need the data, and lot of people are wondering why do we only get the county numbers but not broken down city by city? what do you think, dr. patel? >> i think part of it has to do with reporting. and, you know, it's difficult to actually report all the numbers and you have to make sure that every single testing site is reporting not only the amount of positive tests, but the negative ones, as well. so, it really is a big coordination between different departments of health. it's not as simple as we will want it to be, but that's an important number to know. i'm going to talk about the new fda test, thor is rolg test, the hope is to have widespread testing to be able to identify people who have hate covid-19 in the past and have now recovered from it, so we can get a better sense who out there is still at

risk and how much of the community has seen it. >> can we even begin to estimate what percentage of the population has been exposed so far? >> i mean, we have early estimates and most of the estimates are coming out are like we mentioned earlier, with the curve. but with thor is rolg test, we're looking at people that have been exposed in the past, you can get a sense of which groups are still at risk out there. and that's a really important number for us to understand. >> yeah, because that could determine, for example, you know, if you could go back to work or work on the front lines. i have a friend that is convinced that she had it, because she had all the symptoms and had nefver experienced anything like that before, but you know, she suffered through it on her own at home for a few days and she has never gotten tested and will never show up as a number. the. >> yeah, and i have heard the

exact same thing from even some of my coworkers who are working on the front line, and developed a fever, had the symptoms, selfuantle test in some areas. and they would love to know, you know, did i actually have covid-19? and if i did, number one, maybe i should be the one, you know, going to the grocery store or going to work instead of somebody else, but also, this opens up a whole door to getting people to donate their plasma and donate those antibodies. >> yeah. we have to get that kind of antibody testing on a widespread basis soon. i want to ask more questions from facebook. sandra is saying, in our neighborhood, they don't use water on street cleaning cleani. i'm very uncomfortable with the dirt not being cleaned. should she be? >> it's fair if you have other respiratory conditions, if you have asthma, sensitive to it. but i don't necessarily see a

big difference regarding sars-cov-2. we suspect it can live in the air, but that's going to be for a few hours. so, it not likely that it was on the ground then lifted in the air and it was able to survive that long and as long as people are still following the same precautions, we've already talked about mask, but all the personal hygiene, the risk shouldn't change that much from the type of street cleaning. >> okay. that's good to hear. bella is asking, is it safe to keep your windows open? what if someone who has an open window next to yours coughs and then, you know, passes it over to you? and i'm thinking, along with the new research that shows it can hang in the air and travel longer and farther, maybe that's a worry? what do you think? >> well, i understand where the question is coming from, because when we say the word, it can live in the air, everyone now is trying to put their own living space, their work space, into context, with an airborne virus,

but you have to think about where the window is, how close it is to another potentially open window and then, is the person on the other side of the window symptomatic, are they coughing out the window? and i think what this question gets to is that we all have to really be doing our part. so, if you were in that situation, you would have to be cognizant who is near you if you are coughing. it's not just up to us, it's up to all of us working together. >> all right. kristina asks, i heard that blood type may play part in the severity of the illness. what do you know about that? >> there was a report looking at chinese patients and they were suspecting -- what the report found was a slightly higher incidents in people with type-a blood. now, that wasn't definitive. it is not a large peer-reviewed study, so, we can't make a claim off of it. if the difference in genetics

affects how people are affected by this. now, remember, we have a lot of blood typeia i data will start as we get more cases, but i wouldn't worry as much as the blood type, i would be more thinking about when scientists are going to get the answer about how genetics play a part. that is related to the receptors, our immune system, our blood type, all of it. >> right. how many seconds do we have left? all right, so we can get one more on here before we take a break, and that is, will heat kill the virus? such as summer? now we have 15 seconds. >> we have no data to suggest that. other viruses tend to replication or reproduce slower in summer months, but we just can't make that claim yet, unfortunately. >> bigilant got it dr. patel, we're going to take anotherewore minutes with dr. patel on our

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>> all right, folks, going back on-air. bay area and federal elt officials are now encouraging all of us to use masks when we're back in public, so, we asked abc 7 viewers to show us their face coverings. we're seeing lots of creativity with people designing and making their own. fashion designer says to make it out of a fun fabric that you enjoy to wear. if you don't have sewing skills, there are a lot of youtube videos showing you how, no sewing. again, you can share yours with us by using #mymaskabc7. all right, that's going to do it for now. thank you so much for joining us on this new interactive show questions. facebook live, youtube live, abc7news.com and on our abc 7 news app. we're tracking questions that were not answered today and, of course, we'll save them for our

next expert, our next conversation, so, feel free to tonight, america's deadliest day in the coronavirus outbreak. more than 1,700 deaths in just 24 hours. the president saying every american has a role to play. new york and new jersey reporting their largest death tolls in a single day. new images inside a new york city e.r. the decisions they're being forced to make with patients. st. john cathedral now being converted into a makeshift hospital. the comfort agreeing to take hundreds of covid patients. a crew member onboard testing positive. the new numbers, the breakdown of men a