building a better bay area for a safe and secure future. >> getting answers. we're going experts questions to get answers in realtime. we'll get into the covid-19 headlines with dr. alok patel, including remdesivir being approved by the fda this afternoon. get your covid questions ready and put them on facebook live and we'll try to get to them with dr. patel. we'll offer a voter's guide how to watch the presidential debate between president trump and former vice president joe biden. what's different, what to look for, what are the hot topics, how to measure who won.

politico reporter karla marinucci and chairman of the san francisco republican party, john dennis. tonight at 6:00, the final presidential debate in nashville. it should have been the third, but it will be the second. how important is tonight to the candidates and the voters? john, we'll start with you. >> it's a tight election, so any appearance is important. so i think we need to see if the president can actually give joe biden enough space so he'll actually answer a question and give fodder to his opponents. >> i think we're 12 days out from the election. millions of voters have already cast their ballots. the president is behind the eye-ball in the polls. every single national poll, just

about. he needs to turn this around. he is running out of time to do that. i think the challenge is for him tonight to focus, focus, focus on covid-19, on the economy, on things that americans care about out there. and on what his agenda is for a next term, if there is one. i think we've seen the president coming up to this debate being sort of increasingly angered with the media and sort of increasingly unfocused when it comes to some of those key issues. for joe biden, it's about not doing any harm. he's leading in those polls, he can't make any gaffes, he's got to be focused also. and i think do what he did in the last debate, which is look at the camera and address the american people and not be distracted by any kind of distractions from president trump. >> all right. karla, can you give viewers the lowdown on the format of the debate? how's it going to work, how is

it different from before? any changes president big difference is the mute button. the first two minutes, the opening statements, both candidates will be able to give those statements without any interruptions from the other. that is the main difference here. and i think the mute button is available in the rest of the debate. we're going to see kristin welker, who is a well-known and very seasoned white house reporter, somebody who has been in the scrum, who knows how to handle candidates who aren't answering the questions. i think she is only the second black woman to ever do a presidential debate. it's going to be interesting. she's already been attacked by president trump. but i think she's going to handle this well. so we're going to see if trump will be able to stay on target and not interrupt. that i think hurt him a lot in the last debate, most of the polls showed that. i think republicans want to see him give time to joe biden to answer some of those hot

questions that they want to see him answer. >> and john, what would staying on focus, staying on message, mean for president trump? what would you like to see him focus on? karla mentioned the interruptions. it is factually true that the president did interrupt vice president biden three-quarters of the time, and it was the other way, one-quarter of the time. but i'm sure you would like that to stop on both sides. stay on message means what if you are president trump's adviser? >> i thought that was actually a good tactic early on. i think if i can be a little critical, i think the president may have overextended that tactic in the last debate, maybe should have done it for the first half, then let it go. i think joe biden, frankly, is his own worst enemy. he opens his mouth sometimes just -- let him talk. put him on the hot spot on the hunter biden laptop issue. is he the big guy who is taking money from the chinese, from the russians, from the ukrainians? i think if president trump can actually score some points in

that regard, it will throw joe biden off and it will basically feed his base what they want to hear. because the mainstream media has basically ignored that story of the laptop. that's what they really want to hear about. >> if you're referring to the "new york post" article on hunter biden, any dealings with china, wouldn't that open the door also for perhaps biden to then talk about president trump and his bank account that he had in china that has also come out this week? karla, what do you make of that? >> yeah, i think first of all, i think president trump is trying to do a redux of the 2016 campaign where he talked about hillary clinton's emails. the difference this time, talking about hunter biden, we're in the middle of a pandemic. people have been home for months. many have lost their jobs. many are on unemployment. many are sitting home watching saying, i don't want to be in this room anymore, what are you going to do for me? i wonder -- i believe hunter

biden's situation is not relevant to many of the voters out there. and that i think doesn't even begin to touch the veracity of the story we're talking about. as we know that one of the reasons many in the mainstream media, including my own organization, politico, have not given a lot of amplification to this story is the emails have not been verified as authentic. the computer has not been proven to be hunter biden's. even the lead reporter at the "new york post" pulled his byline from that story. there's a lot of questions that story. whether that issue even resonates for voters at home who are worried about the economy and covid, i have big doubts about that. >> i think that the -- they can be verified, someone did verify them today. curiously, the biden campaign has not denied that the laptop is legitimate. and what's really important is, and this is really critical, the trump base feels like the media has been terribly unfair to him. and as long as he keeps that story out there going, he's

going to [ audio problem ] which is really critical to this election. >> it is interesting how people view that exchange with lesley stahl of "60 minutes" which president trump has posted on his facebook. it seems to be partisan in that those who are already his supporters see it that way, that 6260 minutes" was unfair to him. those who are not his supporters see it quite in the opposite direction, which of course speaks to how things are right now, right? so many minds have already been made up, it seems to be the case. john, i want to talk about covid. that seems to be an opportunity, in the sense that when the president first got it and then recovered from it, that certainly allows him to have a new perspective or tell a story. do you think the way he has treated covid in the past week helps him in terms of the public perception of how he's handling it? he continues to hold rallies in which there are thousands of people. he continues to have battles with dr. fauci in public, calling him a disaster. do you advise him to continue

taking that tactic? or would you like to see a different perspective he might reflect on the stage tonight with regard to covid? >> i infrequently tell the president what to do, because he's been so successful in an unorthodox way. i think he's continued to do what he thinks makes sense to do. i think his handling of covid, frankly, has been excellent. and i think what might be an interesting line of debate tonight might be for donald trump to turn around and ask joe biden, you're criticizing me on what i've done with covid washes would you have done differently? get him to spell that out in a coherent way. when joe starts going off on this topic, he doesn't sound terribly coherent. drag him down that road, but let joe do the talking, then see what comes out of it. >> john, i want to ask you, karla made the point that with biden being in the lead in many polls right now, president trump needs to flip the script, if you will, change the narrative. i want to ask you, do you think

that that is something that can happen with this debate? if so, what could actually happen that would flip the script? >> i think what would flip -- what the two candidates are fighting over are the few undecide thes left in the race. they have their bases locked in. there are people who are going to make their decision based on the last 12 days. i think that's really what they're working on right now. and i have to say, you mentioned the lesley stahl interview. i think most fair minded, independent people who haven't decided will fall in the president's camp and find him in favor. that was a very aggressive, unnecessarily brutish interview. >> all right. karl lashes last word here and i'll ask you what you think a win means for each of the candidates tonight what you think we should look out for. >> a win for president trump is to stanch the bleeding. he's losing white women, who he had last time around. he's losing seniors, who he had

last time around. he's losing white voters, even rural white voters. it's not enough for him to just fire up his base. he's got to amplify his base. he's got to expand that base. if tonight he takes the approach of attacking lesley stahl and attacking kristin welker, attacking the media, complaining, it doesn't come off as a strong man, it comes off as a whiner, i this think that's going to be a problem for him. joe biden, he's got to have a very focused, straightforward message to the american people, as john said, about how he would handle covid better, how he would take the economy into a positive place. that's his job, and i think he has to sit back and also let president trump go. that damaged trump last time around. >> a couple of other sticky points for biden as well, the issue of the supreme court, how he might expand it.

he mentioned he was going to create this commission. i'm sure there will be questions about that, as well as his family and a whole lot more. boy, look what you've just proven here, that we can have a great conversation exploring different viewpoints and sides. >> i want to say something, you may want to have us back after the election for the postmortem. i don't believe any of these polls. donald trump is going to win, he's going to pull it out in 2020. >> i think there are republicans and democrats who think about that scenario. so much unpredictability. so yes, i'm going to book you both right now. thank you, john, karla, a pleasure talking with you both. no doubt they will be and you can also watch president trump and joe biden go head to head tonight in nashville. that debate begins at 6:00 p.m. here on abc 7. we'll take a short break. up next, covid-19 with dr. alok patel. one of the big headlines that just came out, the fda has approved a drug, a therapeutic.

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welcome back. covid-19 news continues to make headlines. let's get right into it with our special correspondent, dr. alok patel. dr. patel, the biggest headline right now just in in the past hour is that the food and drug administration has approved remdesivir. it is a drug made by foster city-based gilead. people have heard of it because of president trump having taken some recently. but tell us, what is this drug, what does it do, and tell us about how it got approved. >> so long story short, i think there was a lot of back and forth in the media and headlines about remdesivir. the world health organization came out and said, hey, it may not actually shorten disease duration, it may not shorten

symptom symptoms, may not prevent death. but our data suggests it could shorten how long you're sick for. so that is the data that got it to be fda approved. the most important thing that people need to understand is remdesivir, an antiviral, isn't necessarily a cure. it doesn't matter what the president said, it is not something that's preventative either. it's a medication you would take if you have a serious enough illness to be hospitalized for covid-19. it's given through an iv. so again, it's not a cure, it's just going to shorten how long you're sick for. so i'm hoping people don't need to experience remdesivir, because it's only if you're hospitalized. >> what is the cost of this drug? is this something the average person could get or afford or be covered through their insurance? >> i think that's a great question. off the top of my head, i don't know the cost that's going to be put on people, depending on where they are or what dose they get or everything else that's compiled with their hospitalization stay.

i think you're underscoring an important point, that just because a drug is fda approved and available if you're sick, that doesn't necessarily mean every single person is going to immediately have access to it. you have to understand that 30 to 40 million americans don't have health insurance. so covid-19 treatment, while it should not be denied to anyone, is still racking up thousands and thousands of dollars in health care bills for some people. that's an unfortunate side effect we're seeing and hearing more and more stories about right now. >> okay. this drug has been used for other things in the past, so we do have quite a bit of info on it. do you know what side effects there might be from it? >> there are some general side effects which i wouldn't want anyone to worry about because these are things that the hospitals are closely monitoring people. this is why they monitor things like your electrolytes, kidney, liver. they make sure you don't have comorbidities that could be affected by the drug. again, this isn't something the average person needs to worry about because they're not going to be running to the store and

buying remdesivir, this is something you're going to be taking in a closed hospital setting where you're going to have doctors closely monitoring you day by day. >> okay. i want to switch to vaccines. this past week we've had setbacks. yesterday we heard about the astrazeneca trial, a participant died, this was in brazil, i think. talk about what is new in the vaccine world. >> i think that headline is actually getting a lot of attention. people are scared about it. you know, astrazeneca did acknowledge that somebody died, but they're continuing with their trial. they haven't released a lot of data about the death but it's presumed it doesn't have to do with the actual vaccine and that it's kind of independent of what's happening in the trial. but we're still kind of in an unprecedented territory with how many vaccine manufacturers are actually pushing forward. there's 11 right now in phase 3 trials. the two leaders, if you will, the ones who are farthest along, moderna and pfizer. the fda said we need at least two months of safety data, so

even mod concern that who enrolled 30,000 volunteers, openly said they're not going to put out data and go for authorization in the late november, early december. still breakneck scientific speed, but don't expect a vaccine until late this year, and that doesn't mean that everyone will be able to get it. that's just for approval. >> i think this morning, either the fda or the cdc -- i think the fda said it wouldn't be widely distributed, any vaccine, to every american, or most americans, until next april at the earliest. is that a delay or was that always the timeline? >> i think it's safe to kind of give people the expectation that they may not be able to get the vaccine until next spring. because remember, just because a vaccine is submitted for approval, there's still a time period for the fda to review all the data. even if it goes quickly and gets approved and they say this is safe and effective, it may still be rolled out in a tiered approach. meaning those who are high-risk -- frontline workers

get the vaccine first, then it would move downstream from there. i think it's probably safe to say that late, first quarter of next year, it might be available to most people. i think it's important to hammer home that the vaccine's got to be available to everyone, and then you're going to need to get a lot of people vaccinated to see that herd immunity effect. it could be several months after that. >> okay. robert hedrick wants to know, what about the vaccine being made available in china? do we know its effectiveness or safety. >> off the top of my head, robert, i don't know the safety and effectiveness of that vaccine. there's another one that's being developed right now in russia as well. i think we have to pay attention to what our fda does here, because there may be different regulations that are pushed through. for example, the russian vaccine skipped phase 3. and they have started pushing approval way before we would have with our fda. >> right. do we need to take a short break? checking with our producer. we do, okay. we're going to continue this conversation with dr. patel on

facebook live, then come back on

we are back with our special correspondent, dr. alok patel. so earlier, before you joined, we talked with karla marinucci and john dennis, san francisco republican party, about the debate tonight and what kind of role covid, that topic, might play. i want to ask you the same thing, which is, as we watch the debate tonight, what covid considerations do you think we should keep in mind? not just covid, but health care in general. >> first off, when it comes to covid considerations, i think it's important that there's transparency about the protective measures being used at the debate. i've already heard reports about both vice president biden and president trump getting tested beforehand, the podiums are 12 feet apart, they're using plexiglass. i think that sends an important message to the american people that we're still taking it very seriously at the world stage and not putting anyone else at risk. in regards to covid, that topic

in general in the debate, we absolutely need to talk about it. president trump was saying earlier at a rally, all the media wants to talk about is covid, covid, covid. that's because we've had a relatively poor national response here. over 200,000 people dead. the american people want to know, what are we going to do in the future, as in winter and next year? also, how are we going to prevent the next pandemic? how are we going to fix the mistrust in our scientific community ask make sure we're prepared for the next infectious disease epidemic? i think it's a really important topic. regarding health care in general, i hope everyone watching is paying attention for key words about what our health care plan is going to be. it's a lot of promises and i don't hear a lot of details. >> all right. hopefully both candidates will spell out some details for us tonight. i want to fold in a question from david pollock, one of our facebook viewers. i think his sentiment is echoed by more and more people. he says, look, just saying when this first came out, i took it seriously. once i found out the recovery rate, i stopped taking it

seriously. stopped spraying my groceries, haven't worn a mask as much, never had a symptom or tested positive, the virus is not going anywhere but there's no need to be scared. when doctors hear that, they tend to be nervous, but an neck doelgtly, hearing from people, seeing what's happening on the streets, there does seem to be that fatigue, dr. patel. >> 100%. i would not fault anyone for having fatigue and being a little more comfortable in playing their odds, if you will. i agree also that there's no need to be "scared." we shouldn't let this govern our lives and panic. it's good to take precautions and not necessarily have this impending anxiety. i want to remind people, part of the reason recovery is great is because we're better at treating actual cases of covid-19, we have better expectations, we know -- we have a better sense of who's at risk and who's not. one thing that everyone needs to understand, two things. number one, we're learning more

and more about long-haulers, meaning people who catch coronavirus who don't get hospitalized, don't necessarily have a bad illness, but what happens to them long-term? remember, even if you have a mild case that can still overwhelm our health care system, or you could pass it on to somebody else. i hear you on the fatigue, you know, and it's okay to kind of think about what you can do to get outside and destress. but we still have to take it seriously, especially because who knows what's going to happen this winter? >> speaking of being safe, from facebook, millie wants to know about movie theaters, letting you rent a theater with family and friends. $99, you get the whole theater, have up to 20 people. is it safe to be in your own theater, or is the same air circulating amongst all the theaters? oh, good one. >> that is a good one. i would absolutely talk to the theater about what they do to basically protect everyone. are they sanitizing it beforehand? ask questions about the air

supply. remember, if they say something about using a hepa filter and they're able to circulate the air, that takes a lot of time to clear out all the cubic volume of air. so wearing a mask is still probably your best bet, especially if you have a large group of people. remember that person-to-person transmission what is we're worried about, more so, than circulating air from several feet away. but the movie theater staff still needs to have some role in sanitizing it. they need to be wearing masks as well. those are questions we should all ask. also, renting out a movie theater sounds awesome. >> will holiday shopping in halls be a high-risk behavior? >> holiday shopping in malls can absolutely become a high-risk behavior if you think about the fact that it's indoors. also think about the crowds. again, i know i keep coming back to this. a lot of it is on us. if we actually respect these guidelines, right now in san francisco, for example, we can have 25% capacity at nonessential businesses. if we abide by those guidelines

in the holiday season, don't crowd places, we can lower that risk. but if you look at it -- i want to say pound for pound, of indoor holiday shopping, versus other activities, that is a higher-risk activity. take that into account when it comes time to buying gifts for your family. >> dr. patel, thank you so much. we'll t

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with less pain immediately following injection. if you can't afford your medicine, abbvie may be able to help. welcome back. thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show. getting answers. we broke down what to expect with the presidential debate tonight. watch it here at 6:00 p.m. we also covered all the covid headlines for you and your questions with abc 7 news special correspondent dr. alok

patel. we'll be here every weekday on air and livestream, faceboo tonight, the final debate. president trump and joe biden facing off in nashville. the candidate s will now stand 2 feet apart on stage. and muting the mics during their two-minute answers. then opening both mics during open discussion. joe biden tonight saying he expects personal attacks from the president. the president hoping to turn around the polls. jon karl and mary bruce standing by. new reporting tonight after the alarming warning about election interference. u.s. authorities say russia and iran have obtained voter registration information and that iran used that information to send threatening messages to some voters. tonight, state and local elections officials have been warned to patch their systems. pierre thomas is standing by. the coronavirus in the u.s. surging across the south, the midwest, across much of this country. nearly 1,000 deaths in 24 hours for the