eailng fore and sere future, this is abc7 news. hi there. i'm kristen sze. welcome to our daily program called "getting answers." today, we'll talk to the principal of a marin county school that just reopened for in-person learning today. that's right. kids are back. but first, the big headline this afternoon. president trump's visit to northern california and a discussion about our devastating wildfires. governor gavin newsom talked face-to-face with the president about his concern over climate change but the stronger point was made by wade. listen to this exchange. >> one area of mutual agreement is vegetation management but i think we want to work with you to recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forest and actually work together with that science

that's going to be key because if we ignore that science and put our head in the sand and think it's all about vegetation management, we're not going to protect californians. >> i don't think science knows, actually. >> i wish science agreed with you. joining me now to talk about this presidential visit is abc7 news visit phil matier. most people had never heard of him but he had a history in governor newsom in san francisco. >> very aggressive when it comes to the question of the environment and climate change. that's the school he comes out to. wasn't surprising he got into a little exchange with the president. i thought he spoke his mind eloquently. interesting to note the

preside president. the tone of today's event, not aimed at being a debate, whether on the presidential label or on the climb change level. >> you know what i mean with the news conference. he had been dymburt he ca-- and he called i nasty question. how do you think the president overall came across today? >> i don't think he changed anybody's mind. how he comes across is already predetermined but he came to california and i understand that there's this debate about climate change and the role it's played in these tragic fires, not just this year but in years past leading up to this and it's

gotten worse and worse. and there's no question, the days are longer. and heat portion. the fire season is longer. drier. we've had droughts and beetles that killed millions of trees out there ready to go up. when you have two pull up, what prevented in the future or what goes into a fire, the job is to put out the fire and help the people that own the house and get them help. and that's what gavin newsom and donald trump, two reporters looking for possibly a knockdown dragout were talking about and while we talk about fires and the debates, it's interesting to note that about a week or so, or two weeks ago, the federal government under donald trump and the state actually entered into a joint agreement about the

forests that the president was talking about. so we have all our public political and privately, trying to get the job done which is probably best for the people of california right now. >> they do need each other right now. president trump's response, questioning climate science. that stands in contrast to joe biden what he said in a speech from delaware. here's a clip from that. >> hurricanes don't swerve to avoid red states or blue states. grounded in science. acting together, all of us. >> does it strike you as interesting, phil, that there is

still so much a matter of opinion with regard to the issue of climate science? >> it surprises me to know that, no, it does not surprise me. i'm going to have to tell you. a lot of interests from the fossil fuel industry to the environmentalists. big questions in the background of this debate. there's going to be winners and losers. it doesn't surprise me that it stays on the political burner. it's interesting >> i wroonder if you've speculad

whether all this interest and climate science the wildfires we're facing. do you think that's likely to draw out more young voters in this election. >> gulf coast, louisiana, they're being hit by repeated hurricanes. floods. the central part of the united states. we have tornadoes. we have climate change challenge across the board. we have economic changes. we have the virus. i've never seen election that has had this many things going on at one time of near biblical proportions. either one of these events, whether it's an increased hurricane season, whether it's a fire season, whether it's a covid virus would have been monumental on its own and add in the economics of it, we've never seen anything like this before. >> i've lived here over 40 years

and that is absolutely not debatable. i want to go back to governor newsom's relationshipit president trump. had a profuse k you with fema aid approving that quickly and how are they able to avoid the awkwardness you might expect given the fact that governor newsom's ex-wife is now dating president trump's son, how do they avoid that, getting in the way of their working relationship? >> donald trump's from new york. gavin newsom is from san francisco. if we did a family tree of who's dated who over the years, i think you'd find they're pretty much both entangled. these relationships are not that weird out there. if anything, the fact that gavin newsom's ex-wife is with the trump administration might actually turn into a plus for the state of california because she might have some stake in

helping us out, and ikn t what s most focused on right now is that publicly, it's one thing to challenge the president but notice he kind of does it at a distance. he hasn't done a personal attack. i can't say the same for the president and nickname for gavin newsom. the vice presidential nominee. it's a different type of relationship and gavin newsom trying to keep it on the tracks. whether it's fires, whether you need it, you need it and you have to act the the jjob, not t politics. as you know, republicans wasted no time when gavin smonewsom praised donald trump, they cut an ad with that. that was anvi newsom.

>> it will be interesting to see what he had said today, very prominent at the rnc. you brought up senator kamala harris, the democratic vice presidential nominee, she will be in california tomorrow and tackle the wildfires. and expect from her tomorrow and the message that was struck today. >> i wouldn't be surprised if it's a lot more directed trump. that's an issue which they completely sort of disagree. this is going to be, you know, and she could throw some more elbows at it, but, you know, kamala harris for the wildfires, let's not forget, the wildfires have been burning for a while and she'sk in washington, dc and around the country running for president and now vice president.

it's going to be interesting the see how she balances because some people might be asking where have you been? >> all right. we'll see what happens. always great to get your take, phil. you can read phil matier's columns every wednesday and sunday. when we come back, we'll turn the conversation from fire to smoke and how damaging is it for us. we'll talk with a local lung

welcome back. wildfire smoke is everywhere. we are on our 28th straight day of spare the air alerts now and this will continue at least through wednesday. we're told to stay indoors as much as possible but at some point, most people do need to

get outside. stanford health care, thank you it's going on for quite a while right now. >> this is unprecedented in california that we've had such a long stretch without relief from wildfire smoke. and it can have long-term effects on our health and on our life span. so if we look at other parts of the world where they have bad air quality for many days of the year, we see that babies or children who have been

exposed to poor air quality. these are just some of the long-term benefits but this is something of active investigation to understand. >> is it possible to get vertigo from the smoke? >> vertigo can happen for many reasons and sometimes we don't know why, it all of the sudden appears but certainly people are feeling or having headaches. so it can have an impact on the immune system which can impact our whole system, our whole body. >> tina wants to know the difference between unhealthy air versus hazardous air. >> oh, that's a great question. it depends on each individual. if you're a normal healthy

person, air quality index 150 i unhealthy for everybody. if you have underlying conditions of the heart or the lungs, we lower that threshold to 100. ongoing studies if we set the mark at the right benchmark for individuals, elderly people, children, pregnant people. those are vulnerable populations and so, our thresholds for allowing them to be out in poor air quality are lower, normally around 100. >> that makes sense and it's been over 100 most days most of the time and most areas in the bay area. past few days. joyce wants to know, i feel like my vision is being affected. it's like looking through dirty eyeglasses. could it affect your vision or just everything looks so hazy right now? >> it's a combination of both.

that's probably your skin, i mean, normally, typically muco s mucousal surfaces, it can cause more tearing which might, and certainly a haze out there that we're not used to. >> so with any of these symptoms, how can you distinguish between whether you're getting them because of asthma or allergies or covid even? any way to distinguish them? >> what i tell my patients who come to see me is really to keep acofha symptoms you're experiencing.

chest tightness and shortness of breath even with smaller levels of activity because you're having an asthma exacerbation. to understand whether or not it might be due to covid, we ask people if they have a fever or if they've taken their temperature or other types of symptoms like a loss of sense of smell or taste, or gi symptoms which we've noticed are frequent with covid-19 infections. >> so given all that and this is our final word, but how can people protect themselves? really, it's to educate yourself about what is poor air quality for you, to keep anyehat the indexsnea, to makeinformed deo out in public and

what kind of protection you can take to keep in place when you're outside. >> all right. dr. sharon from stanford, thank you so much for all your useful helpful insight. take care.reoing to take a shor break but next, we're turning our attention to reopening schools. in-person learning today.

joining us now, we talked with a doctor and every doctor agrees it's mentally healthy for students to get in-person socialization and learning but it has to be done safely. when the community spread is at such a level and when you have the safety protocol in place. that is why the state is letting schools apply for waivers to reopen and bayside martin luther

king academy in marin city is one of those schools. principal david joins us now. principal, good to see you with your mask on. >> you're a k through 8 school. >> which are back on campus? >> it go? >> it was incredible. 83 kids whose femalamilies whos families are choosing to have them come to school. we have distance learning and ad

then we have another 15 kids joining us, all the seventh and eighth graders plan to attend in person. >> the middle schoolers are coming back, all right, good to know. hey, so can you show us what are some of the changes, the protocol you put into place to make sure kids are safe as safe can be? can you walk around and show us? >> let me put my camera around here. >> don't you love technology? and you can see to start with, we have every staff member when they work every day, the first thing they do questions regarding their health. five different entry points on campus where they check

take temperatures if they don't have masks and then kid masks as well as adult masks. gloves for people checking them in and then all asked these five questions. have you had fever, chills, body ache, cough? in the past 14 days, within 6 feet of somebody for more than five minutes who is or was sick with covid and then the final question, are you ready to have a great day at bayside and mile k? >> principal -- go ahead, keep talking. show me what you got there. i was going to ask if you noticed the kindergarteners were able to keep the masks on today. >> pretty good. i mean, a lot of reminders, a lot of the biggest thing is, keeping it up over the nose. they all wore their mask but it would slide down under their nostrils and then reminding them

to put it back up. >> gotcha. >> and then having their mask, we switched a lot of them out from an adult to a child and that was great. >> i showed the lines and stripes and arrows on the floor. >>yeah,llf yoreal thiway, a you just see, it just keeps people 6 feet apart. there's a little, notice about social distancing, and then coming back, it's the same way. it goes all the way down our corridor to our multipurpose room and we also have set up upstairs in our schol you can't get quite 6 feet apart. you go up one way around, and

down the other way. which is this stairwell this way. the middle, the kids that are older upstairs, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth. a lot of whining about it being such a long walk bathroom, but exercise. >> they've been sitting around too long. make them walk, go ahead. are you resuming sports or no? >> we are not. next week for art and music, it will be in the classroom with the classroom teacher and aid will be supporting them while the teachers zoom in and for p. e. the teachers will be out with the kids on the field and the playground and the p. e. teacher

will be working with them at a distance. >> you mastered the art of walk and talk, as we say in this business. thank you for showing us the awesome campus in there and when you want to flip it back to you when you're done with the tour, that's fine too. we have time for one more question. i do want to ask you, what is your plan if you get a case of covid? what will you do in terms of the quarantining or the learning people, the cleaning. will you shut thing down? what's your plan? >> we have a very strict protocol and order if you will by the county health department. we work closely with matt willis and dr. lisa and both of them work throughar couy through mi supported us in making sure we are prepared if we have a case. there's a chart. what happens if somebody has

symptoms. what happens if somebody in the cohort has covid? what happens if the teacher has covid. it's veryar l halong. there isn't anything left to wondering, so in a cohort, shutting it down for 14 days. obviously, working with the health department on contact tracing, and making sure they're safe and healthy before they return. >> principal fanan in

that will do it for today. thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show, "getting answers."

we'll be here every weekday on air and live stream answering your questions. tonight, the two emergencies unfolding at once in the u.s. the desperate search right now for the missing amid raging wildfires. and now hurricane sally just upgraded to a category 2 hurricane. set to hit the u.s., the state of emergency now in effect tonight. winds already reaching 100 miles per hour. authorities warning of a life-threatening storm surge. gaining strength before making landfall. once it slams into the gulf, expected to move slowly. da rain. ginger zee and rob marciano standing by live from the storm zone tonight. also tonight, that desperate search for the missing amid the fires. the horror across several states. more than 70 major fires burning at this hour. more than two dozen sewn n burned toash.