hi there, i'm kristen zee. welcome to our daily program called getting answers. we will talk to epidemiologist george rutherford and forecast spencer christian and first happening today, the california national guard is doing a job they didn't expect when they signed up. they're firefighters now. 300 soldiers have been training at the sonoma county fair. they hiked their rugged terrain inner that gear, dig fire lines and hosed major hot spots. >> having these additional boots on the ground to get in there

and physically do the work we need to get the containment lines in place is perfect timing. >> firefighters are hoping to take advantage of the humidity today to get more containment. they say winds have already played to tear favor. a second website is up and running that shows the homes damaged or destroyed in the north bay, similar to the damage asse assessment for the czu complex. if it is green, then the home has very little damage. the black building means there was no damage. you can find a link to both maps on our website. abc7news.com. today officials will hold a briefing to provide fire updates an information about recovery programs and resources for sonoma county residents. officials from the california office of emergency services, fema and the sonoma county emergency management agency will be on hand for people and business owners impacted by the

wall bridge in and meyers fires. the briefing will be available on sonoma county facebook page at 6:30 p.m. officials say they have made good progress on the svu complex. evacuation. officials are re nts they w be hesny l reprieve. they are also getting help from several aircraft, including the 747 global super tanker and five helicopters that are staging near livermore. we are waiting for news briefing to start any time. in the meantime, we will give you a few more headlines, half moon bay will close its beaches again. officials say they need to concentrate their resources for displaced evacuees and not the

influx of tourists that usually come on the weekends. they want to keep through town opened for firefighters as well. the city has one evacuation center set up at half moon bay high school. and you can follow fires wide with our exclusive wildfire tracker updated with the latest information from cal fire. see where fires are spreading and get containment information real time. we have all the information and info you need to know and a new feature aida e re acker is now at abc7news.com and news app. speaking of air quality, a lot of folks commented things seem muchwe in with spare in tt in effect. we generally have poor air quality. just not so category the last few days.

notice the wind speeds relatively light in most locations. we have a 17 mile wind in san francisco, many location versus wind speeds in the single digits. so that's quite helpful to the firefighting and contain. effort. humidity increased over the last 24 hours. we had a fairly deep marine layer. last night that brought in lots of marine air and higher humidity. so that's helped with the firefighting effort as well and current temperatures are generally in the mild, i am almost hesitant to say warm, mild-to-warm category. it's about 85 degrees in some of the inland locations like south livermore or fairfield. so it's a pretty mild day. all in all, i'd shasnimovement containment effort. let me get you a condition near the fires. we look at the lightning complex, you can see the winds are very light, even the gusts only four miles per hour. two miles per hour. relative humidity 87% near the wall bridge fire.

59% near the hen see fire. one more location will take you don't oruld and the wood fire. ni relative humidity 100%. i will skip down here and give now. bare with me, this will bounce around a little bit. notice we're seeing more grown dots showing up here than we saw yesterday. green indicating good air quality. down in the south bay, san jose, santa cruz, many locations over the santa cruz mountains have poor quality and to give you a look at the air quality outlook. i mention today as a spare of the air day. you can see we have generally poor air quality. although, the sky looks bluer generally today than it did yesterday. then friday through sunday, tomorrow through sunday, the spare the alert will stay in effect. notice, moderate air quality will occur over the area. the next three days are the

north bay and the santa clara valley. so generally, we're in an improving, moving in an improving direction. but we're not quite there yet. >> yeah, spencer. i wonder if in santa clara county and also the north bay, if the air remains worse because they are closer in proximity to where the biggest fires are burning. or is that because of the wind conditions we have or the way weather patterns are? >> probably a little of both. they are in san mateor to the fires in the santa cruz mountains. it also has something do do with the windn shore from west to east. it's been pushing along the coastal areas, pushing the smoke away. once the wind hits the topography around here because we have so many different elevations and mountains and valleys and gaps, the wind direction can change. so it's quite possible that some of the wind flowing on shore into the peninsula, for example. it could be diverted by the part of the pushing more of the smoke

down into that direction. >> hmm. are we still at the level in most of the bay area where you want to try to stay indoors, if possible? or do you feel like looking at those readings that, you know, folks who want to get out there for a little mental relief from being locked down and sheltered in place, is it okay for them to get outside in short periods? >> i would say so. i think the concern about outdoor activity, strenuous activity. if are you a runner as i am, i love to run outdoors, i would say, 28 a couple more days for further improvement in the air quality before going out thereg. in terms of going out for a walk or normal outdoor activity, it's the conditions are improving, i would say there is no need to feel you need to stay at home unless you suffer from respiratory illness. >> all right. spencer, welcome that marine layer. colorado on in, wash over us. >> bring it on. >> all right. t information. estions, youny want to post-them right now.

we are going to chat next with dr. gorge rutherford of ucsf on the latest covid headlines from

day weekend. . >> all right. we're back. all right. lot to talk about when it comes to covid-19 so let's bring in dr. jurnlg rutherford, infect -- dr. george rutherford from infection diseases at ucsf. >> my pleasure. >> the governor said tomorrow he will reopen the revisioning rules. do you know what changes we can expect? >> i was thinking it was going to be about labor day. i have no direct knowledge of what's going on. but i thought there might be a little hesitancy about or some caution about labor day given

our experiences with memorial day. >> oh, bless you. yes, indeed, memorial day, everybody went out and we saw those numbers rise. you are right with labor day. i think i am starting to see places taking action preventatively, monterey, carmel, they will close the beaches. do you think that's why? and santa cruz came off the watch list, i don't think we are all going to flock to santa cruz. >> i know santa barbara officially closed all tear beaches for a while. yeah, this is not the time to be going out and risking exposure. it's as simple as that. have you the tools to prevent this. use them. >> all right. so i got to ask you. eight counties have come off the list, right, we talked about santa cruz, surprisingly, orange county. the same county where people not wearing masks packed the beaches, forcing the governor to close those beaches. did they crush covid recently or

what's driving that? >> you know, i have been trying to figure that out all day long. i think what might be going on is that there was orange county a ton of infectionism in the latino community. we're not the ones at the beaches and you know acting badly. and as with the rest of the state, i think the latin x population has really gotten the message about [ inaudible ] all the preventative things that we can do. and that there has been such a major dropoff in transmission of that group. it reflects across the whole county. but you know that's just a theory right now. >> yeah, okay. but orange county, i think i was looking at it 170 new cases for 100,000 people. that's about where santa clara county is. right? and santa clara county is still on the watch list? >> yeah. but, yeah, the state counts them differently. it's a very confused thing between what shows up in the

newspapers and what shows up on the state's watch list. it's partly because the state's counting i think -- this is not at all clear -- is counting by indict that the test was done rather than the date the test was reported. so if you get lags in test reporting, it pushes the numbers up, whereas if you look at the date of testing, you can catch the downturns a little faster. >> so are you bothered? are you troubled or not at all by orange county coming off the list? >> i was thinking of going to disneylands this weekend. i think i'll give it a pass. >> yeah. i don't think they're opened right now anyways. so i hear what are you saying. where are the places where cases are surging? because for the most part, it does seem like the numbers are coming down or leveling off. so where are the new trouble spots? >> the trouble spots are in the central valley as the infection has moved into, you know, poor agricultural workers and people working in food processing

plants. if you look at a per capita rate, the highest current curran county with kings and stan slauv closer into us as having rates and the sacramento valley we seen a move from urban populations. we're starting to come down to more agricultural world populations. and as part of that, monterey and san bo innito have high rat as well. >> all right. so if that is what's changed, the places and the populations where we are seeing the surge, what does that say about policy or steps that we need to take? any changes? >> no, i mean, you know, a lot of this is work-place exposures. a lot has to do with housing stock. a lot has to do with how people get back and forth to work. i think we can only reiterate the advice about masks and

social distancing. it's hard to socially distance when you are living in a garage with four other guys and work in the fields all day long. you know, it's just tough. around, you know, i think that the in san francisco we have the luxury of a lot of extra hotel rooms. >> are you right. >> who need to be isolated. you know, that doesn't exist in mendoza. >> you are right. >> that's a loose end. that's a big loose end. >> yeah. hey, do you expect to see a surge from our repeat wildfires or a heat wave say in the next week or two? why or why not? >> i think maybe, but probably not that much to start with, i know at least in the san mateo/santa cruz fires, they were putting people into hotel rooms rather than big congress regat red cross shelter at the high school gym kind of thing. i know there is a staging area at half mon bay gym.

they are keeping family members separate to be less likely to infect each omts. the people i worry about are at the fire camps at the end of the day you are sitting around eating. it's just the chance, you have take your mask off. there is going to be a 'lot of people there together and so i have some worries about that. but i think, in general, you know, the warm weather pushes people outside more than anything else, which is good. and that cuts down you know being outside is better tan being inside. >> just don't all go to the same beach. that's all. how are we doing on contact tracing? i know you led the efforts early on here in the bay area r. we now at a point where would you say basically every known case you get to 80/90% of the people that they have been in touch with? or how is that going? >> yeah, we're pushing up toward 80%. it gets harder with everything opened up. people walk around more. they come into contact with more

people. but we're getting. i think all of us are getting into the high 70s, low 80s, across the counties. so i'd say we're doing pretty well. it's never going to be perfect. it's hard to find people, especially if they don't want to be found. there is this issue. let's say i do day labor. i do construction. i got a family with little kids and a wife that works cleaning rooms or something like that. you know, and i have asymptomatic infection and somebody tells me i have to go into isolation for ten days and not earn any income. >> yeah. >> that's not a happening thing. right. you need to, in san francisco, we are lucky we have income support and social services, housing, all those things that can make that happen. again if you are out in the central valley, that's much less likely to be happening. >> how concerned are you about the cdc's new guidance? saying it's not necessary for people who have been exposed to someone with covid. they don't feel sick,

themselves. so symptoms yet. they don't have to get tested. what do you think about that change? >> it's absurd. and it's, you know, it makes no sense at all. around i think that they actually were walking it back today. if you look across this sort of spectrum of disease, probably 60% of people are asymptomatic when they transmit the virus. right. so that's the last group you want to take offline. so i think it was a grave error. luckily, this early recommendations, we don't have no pay attention to them. we can continue to do what we are doing. i was pleased to say the governor made this deal to double testing capacity in the state. that's what we need. not a bunch of lame advice about how to do things wrong. >> well, i was going to say, yeah, governor newsom made that announcement just wednesday. when i heard that i thought, oh,

okay, that means there is plenty of testing capacity. but the white house today admitted that that cdc guidance change was due a backlog in testing. i don't get it. is there a nationwide backlog or is there not? aren't tests becoming more readily available? >> yes, tests are becoming more readily available. we've gotten rid of the backlog, at least here. there is always supply chain problems. but that's not -- i doubt very much that's what this was about. [ inaudible ] that's really let's think something up the next day to explain why we did you know pull some bone-headed move like that. >> all right. on that note, we'll take a short break, continue the conversation ov

all right. around we are back with dr. george rutherford, chief of infectious disease at ucsf. i want to ask you, you've heard vice president biden talking about a national mask mandate.

he has said that he would absolutely enact that. if there is one, whether because he wins the election or president trump changes his mind and thinks it's a good idea and wants to go with it, would that influence american's behavior at this point would you think? >> i hope it would have some influence right now we have about 70% of the people masked when they go outside. we'd like to have more. so i am, you know, i this i that it's not going to hurt anything and, hopefully, between having a federal mape date and having leaders is that set examples by wearing masks, that will push certain, push a segment of the society that hasn't been wearing masks forward. >> dana kavanaugh wants to know on facebook. i have a question for you. what is the status of a covid vaccine? >> oh, dana, good yes. there are currently two covid

[ lost audio] one in russia. one in china. you probably don't want to get any of those soon. we have two other vaccines in stage 3 late stage trials sponsored by the u.s. federal government. i suspect that those by report, i expect we'll be seeing, you know, those available for people. not in trials. but for the people at high risk in early next year. is there 128 vaccines in development. so we're bound to find some stuff that works. so i'm quite optimistic about it. >> optimistic is good. we have some reason to be optimistic. what about skepticism? you know, there are a lot of people starting to say, i don't know if i would take that vaccine, some people because they doubt vaccines. other people because they have been hearing about an expedited process that maybe would go without the usual large-size trials. what are you saying to folks

that are scent kale? >> i think for people worried about trials and the safety profile, i this i that nobody is going to, who knows, i think there is going to be a lot of pushback from lots of sectors if we think that there has been a rush to judgment for a vaccine efficacy and safety. at the large trials that are going on now are well designed. they have lots of people and we'll be able to see, you know, see most of the side effects. now, if it's a side effect that occurs once in every 100,000 doses, no trial is big enough to pick those up and that's where you will have to sort of see what happens. i personally would not hesitate to get a vaccine once it's been approved. because i want to go to disneyland, as we were talking about. >> we both want to go to disneyland. in fact, we should go together. what is your favorite ride there? >> i got stuck eight-years-old with my grandmother on the peter

pan and we were suspended over london for 30 minutes. >> so aren't you traumatized? but that is your favorite? all right. >> yep. >> i go with indian na jones and pirates of the caribbean. we need to celebrate when from is all overwhelm. we have been hearing about a twindemic. how ready do you think we are to deal with the dual threat simultaneously? >> we have to get influenza vaccine into as many people as possible. that's how you deal with that. and it's obviously the influenza vaccine recommendation just came out this week. and you know without seeing any big new mutations in the southern hemisphere, so we think that the flu strain is circulating this year is going to look pretty much like the flu strains that have been circulating the last few years. the other thing to say is to the extent that people socially distance and wear masks, that's also a way to prevent influenza. so i think we may see a

decrease, have, if everybody does that, and if people get vaccines, we may well have a milder influenza season than usual, which will be most welcome. because we don't want to have all the pressure on hospitals and icus of people sick with flu as well. >> absolute lit. hey, jeff mansfield has a question. what is the data on irorectin, why isn't it used here in the u.s.? >> i have to be hon et, i never heard of it. >> it's an anti-citic drug. it's great for scabie, by the way. we use it for tropical aerocytic diseases. i haven't heard of its use. sorry. >> rabbit robert will get the last question. is it possible the wildfires and smoke had a positive influence on covid spread. i what was asking if there was a negative influence, meaning less

infections in those areas? >> that's interesting. to the extent people don't go out to malls and you know and are congregating socially, yeah, i mean, it may. you know, there is a school of thought the best thing to prevent covid in san francisco was the 49ers losing the super bowl. it prevented the super bowl break, which could have been a sewage u huge super spreading event. so that's the same sort of thing you're talking about. >> yeah. there are some football fans who say, hey, i would rather take the trophy. >> i

rolls out. that's a little harder to ascertain. all right. that's going to do it for now.

thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show, getting answers, what makes this show different is we don't have to rush through interviews. we had a conversation about the major tonight, hurricane laura slams into the u.s. as a category 4 hurricane. the death toll growing tonight. the hurricane making landfall in louisiana in the middle of the night. winds 150 miles per hour. homes and buildings leveled. roofs torn apart. a skyscraper shredded. half a million customers now without power tonight and those who didn't evacuate are now calling for help. powerful winds derailing a mile-long train. and the new danger as the skies clear. hurricane laura causing a chemical plant fire. nearby residents told to shelter in place. meteorologist rob marciano, part or our team riding out the storm, he's standing by with the latest track and where this storm will cause significant trouble next. there is also news tonight about the teenager who came from

a neighboring state, now accused of firing into a crowd of