building a better bay area for a safe and secure future, this is abc7 news. hi there, welcome. i'm kristen sze. this is our daily program called "getting answers." we're asking experts your questions every day at 3:00 to get answers in realtime. we'll talk to renowned scientist dr. lucy jones, and she calls it the music of climate change. that's not all. other disasters we cannot even foresee right now, and covid. so a whole host of issues, science-related, earthquakes, of course. if you have any questions, please go ahead and post them on our facebook page right now on our live stream.

she's going to talk to us about the news briefing today, the san francisco's covid response and the latest numbers and give it to you right now. as of today, san francisco has 7,433 cases. the total number of deaths, 91. good news and real positive progression in the last 14 days is that the number of new cases per day, that is down. about a couple months ago, we were seeing about 200 new cases per day. as of yesterday, and the day before, the day before that, around 70 new cases per day. given these positive developments, she is allowing more things to reopen now as you know, just this week, san francisco reopened gyms, salons, tattoo parlors but at a limited capacity, talking about only 10% right now. people being close to each other, to reduce the density.

that is something that a lot of businesses say is very hard to maintain, to make money on and survive, if you will. she is actually signing in now to join us. we'll ask her about even though test positivity rate is down and again, good news, some populations are still being hit. the test positivity in that community. schools around the bay area, not the schools.

the mayor unveiled a while back. how those are on facebook now to see what kind of questions you have, mayor london breed right now. are we getting her quickly real soon? all right. so that is happening. and i see you guys are with us, that's another two minutes. two minutes a little bit too long to stretch so we'll start you off with a quick soundbite from the mayor's news briefing held a couple of hours ago. but then as soon as she logs in and joins us in a minute and a half, we'll switch over to that. >> we are fortunate in that people can go outside and breathe a little better and hopefully see the air quality improve over the next few days.

we are not out of the woods when it comes to covid. we have to always keep in mind that the need to wear your mask and socially distance and to even be reminding and diligent about this process is necessary. and also focusing on making sure we don't turn back the clock. you remember a couple of months ago, one day i announced we'll be opening a number of places and as of today, some of those places are open and some of those places still are not open. but we do have some good news in that our hair salons, nail salons and other places that clearly from my perspective

finally to operate i know they're staying open. >> that was london breed on tape but now we have her live with us us. launching a new program that gives a thousand dollars to black and papa civic islander pregnant women. tell us about that pilot? >> this came about based on a lot of research and work with the university of california's san francisco,

and in this community, as a result, the pilot program the additional resources, support around making sure that folks are getting prenatal care and we're going to be analyzing this data to determine if this makes an improvement. any strings at all attached to how that money would be spent. university of california san francisco and so they will analyze each person, each case and make a determination. a lot of factors they're going to look at is, you know, low income women in particular.

african-american and pacific islander, those in need and also making sure that prenatal care is a priority. so it's not going to necessarily, prenatal care, they're taking care of themselves and providing additional resources for them to do so. >> new cases are down. averaging about 70 per day now. looki looking. >> we're having problems with the latino.

and the particular community and making some adjustments in addition to the pop-up location the eastern side of san francisco we know there are more cases. we have increased testing and our work around half of those folks doing contact tracing, they speak spanish and the work to deal make sure people know kw the hospitalization rates start to climb. that was what the press conference was today earlier to remind people that it's important to contain a file of

the health guidelines. >> even with the mix progress if you will and the teared system. that's not the most serious leve level, and while many say that's a start and that's a positive sign. business owners are also telling us, look operating at that level, we can't really pay our rent. what do you say to them? >> well, i will say that, you know,.net disagree with that them. we know it's not enough. and unlike residential evictions, the state governs the laws associated working with the

governor to extend that so people can have the security of having a location as they begin to reopen their businesses. but the fact is, there are going to be some real challenges ahead of us. this is not just in san francisco. this is all over the country. global pandemic. millions of dollars in no interest loans. delay of fees to the point where we are definitely looking at forgiving so many fees that people have had to pay, many of these small businesses, and so look, i get it and we're trying to do our best coming up with a number of ballads and other things that we hope will make a difference and sadly, that's not going to be enough. people have been closed for over six months. there is nothing more important to me than to try to do everything i can to make sure that we open those businesses as

soon as and as quickly as possible. >> i want to turn the subject over to skoochools. i know you started these learning hubs and how is that going so far and are schools far behind? schools support to in comparison to those who we haven't. many of these kids don't have family members or support at home to help them do this process, so the learning hubs opened yesterday. i was so excited about the learning hubs, but i think the kids were really excited to be around other kids. and also the need to have people there to assist with lesson plans, especially in households where the parents don't speak english. because we know these lesson plans are challenging.

we know that this has been really tough on kids and we know we need to get these schools back open as soon as we can safely do so. it's not enough, it's not going to be enough. and so, getting schools back open. so that's why it's so important that people follow the social distancing orders, wear a mask and do your part because these kids and others are counting on us to get the city back open. >> i think we only have 30 more seconds but i'd be remiss if i didn't ask you this because so many people whose parents are asking, will halloween trick or treating be allowed this year in the city, i'm going to guess you're going to say depends on what people do now. i want to say, it's so important that no matter what we choose to do, we do it safely. we use common sense. i know those parents more

importantly want to get their kids back in school more than anything else. and i'm not certain if halloween halloween, handouts, stuff like that. parents come up with really creative ways to celebrate. it doesn't always have to involve maybe trick or treating or some of the traditional things we've done. the more we do, the more we risk getting covid. the more chances we are that we see the numbers go up, and that could delay opening and returning to schools. we've got to just be very thought aboutful about the decisi decisions we make.make.make it's tough to ask people to hald off. >> it sounds like it's going to lo

look. >> nice of you to check in. keep this conversation going. take care. >> we'll take a short break on the air but look with dr. lucy jones about climate chang

our next guest is a go to source for earthquake and other scientific information. she now has a podcast called getting through it and she wrote an article called the music of climate change. joining us to talk about what's a major political debate, scientist doctor lucy jones, of course at the u.s. geological survey and found eer for scienc and society. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me here.

take a listen. we'll have that in a second. but basically, he was sitting there at the round table, the president and governor gavin newsom with the secretary for natural resources, and there was an exchange about climate science. mutual agreement and priority is vegetation management. we want to work with you to recognize the changing climate and what it means to our forest. if we ignore and think it's about vegetation management. >> it will start getting cooler. you just watch. >> i wish science agreed with

you. >> i don't think science knows actually, tom? >> after that, you tweet add response, science does know actually? we predicted many, many decades ago that this would lead to warming. we are seeing warming. data on warming is absolutely incon tr in incontrovertible, and because it's being driven. all the physics and chemistry we

know, since it's being driven by actions, the data matches our predictio predictions and the prediction is it will keep ongoing. the idea that it will somehow turn cooler is magical thinking and the science says it's not going to happen. >> we do have the seasons. we are getting into fall, so it will be cooler, but when we look at the long-term. it averages them across. all of those and getting an average global temperature and we've gone up, average it over the whole world and the seasons. >> not to scare people, but given climate change and that we are now warmer than we should be. what other types of disasters are possible in the future that

we haven't had before? more heat in the atmosphere, more energy in the atmosphere, one would expect in the situation is that there's more energy available to drive storms and therefore not more hurricanes but more intense hurricanes. and that's exactly what we've seen the most, the highest wind speeds in just a few years ago. the longest duration. especially heat differences. those are the most difficult to predict the timing of but the

most a certain climate. the climate is now different and that's true everywhere in the world every eco-system. the eco-system no longer appropriate for the climate.

the climate change happened over millennia and it would shift as some plants became more hardy than others and it would gradually take over. doing it too quickly and there's no natural process for the wholesale replacement. that's what's going on. >> dr. jo

dr. lucy jones, of course, built a career on earthquake science but you're tackling a lot more right now. your other endeavors, explore one of them, that's podcaster and also musician. you know, you've taken your findings and channelled them into musical forum. can we play that? let's do that.

are you the violinist there, dr. jones? >> not a violin. it's the guy who's actually i'm studying with. >> can i ask why you do that? is it more for you where that's your creative outlet over the angst you feel about these things happening or to reach the public? >> i definitely started it for myself. it was just the frustration of seeing how big the changes were, being able to see how music can show how. one thing about being a scientist. we don't handle emotion well. music is my outlet for processing that. i originally wrote it for myself but got encouraged to make the

video up on youtube to help other people see it as well. >> the wildfires still on our radar. do you think we'd be ready for an earthquake amid the challenges? >> there's no question, if we had the big earthquake, firemen are pretty busy right now. i think that would be the most catastrophic potential consequence if it were to happen but californians have responded the a lot of catastrophic things.

made you prominent as well. how do you feel about it? >> as a scientist, it appalls me. you shouldn't believe me because i'm a celebrity, understand that for yourself is challenging, and if this helps people better understand it, i'm willing to do it. >> dr.

thaunchts so much for joining us today on this for

tonight, several stories breaking as we come on the air. hurricane sally set to slam into the u.s. the states of emergency tonight. the hurricane already lashing the coast. warnings up now from louisiana straight across to florida. this is a slow-moving hurricane, which could be devastating. the third hurricane to hit the gulf coast this season alone. the tornado threat right now. and the potential for life-threatening storm surge. up to 30 inches of rain is expected. ginger zee and rob marciano both in the storm zone with the latest timing and track tonight. meantime, the wildfires and the smoke traveling across the country. tonight, the hazardous air quality choking major american cities. portland, oregon, the worst air qualify in the world. what they're now handing out there. and this dangerous air, evidence of this all the way to the east coast.