hi there. i'm kristen sze. welcome to our daily program, "getting answers" where we get answers for you in real time. today we have a packed show for you. we'll be joined by dr. peter chin hong to discuss this new covid-19 strain now officially here in california. we just got that word a couple hours ago. we're going to answer all your other covid-19 questions as well. so ask away right now on feign live. also we'll be talking college apps. the deadline coming up in a couple of days, a few weeks. we have a counselor answering your questions right here on air. the big news in california, governor newsom's vision for getting students back in the

classroom. >> really try to lean in into the future and anticipation. we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel. we're confident in our ability to move through this pandemic and the challenges in front of us, particularly in the next 30 to 60 days but really looking at the spring. looking at february, march, april. >> all right. early spring. here's a quick breakdown of the plan. you heard there as early as february. it would start with young elementary school students, students with disabilities, those in costar care and unsheltered students. funding for schools and requiring aadditional testing and ppe for students and faculty. they must be in a county where the rate is 28 per 100,000

people. we're far surpassing that right now. almeida, santa cruz counties meeting that threshold. right now we want to let you know that we have invited -- because we very much wanted to get cta perspective on this. mr. boyd was going to join us but canceled about ten minutes ago. i want to read you a little bit of their statement on their wieb, the california teachers association. part of it says we look forward to hearing more information and hope the new guidelines that the governor said would be released next week will create a coherent statewide plan rather than creating more confusion for parents and school districts, so they like the framework but they wane to hear the details. all right. we will be getting the school board perspective. joining us for more is tony flint, the spokesperson for the california school board association. tony, thank you so much for your

time today. >> not at all. thanks for having me. >> yeah. i want to ask you, the governor says this plan was formed with a lot of input from the cta and from the school board. from your perspective, how well does this framework, you think, work for the school boards? does it support them enough to allow them to be open? >> i think what the governor presented today is an encouraging platform for discussion on an important topic, which is how can we get kids back to schools safely. i think there's a lot of good work here. clearly, they were thorough and put a lot of time and effort into is, but it's a broad conceptual plan. and where the rubber really meets the road is taking this plan from the abstract and implementing it across 1,000 school districts that have very different local circumstances, very different needs in their student populations and very different attitudes in their

communities, and so really nailing that piece and making sure that the program is flexible enough to neat demands of every local school district is where we need to focus our energy right now. >> war you hearing from the school boards in terms of how easy it is for them to actually implement the testing part? in this plan, the dpoirn said he wants testing. it's up to each school district, right? there hasn't been an overall plan to conduct surveillance testing, as they call it? >> that's right. most of our listeners are proponents of local control. there is so much variance from school district to school district. they want to have the flexibility to make changes or a way to implement things that make sense for their particular communities. however, we are in extreme times. and what school board members have been crying out for from the state is for the states to be more concrete in its guidance

and to have more support in terms of funding, in terms of resources, in terms of staffing, and in terms of expertise, in order to execute all the steps that need to be taken in order to resume on campus instruction safely. we haven't seen that to date and this is a step in that direction. but the question piece is one of the more challenging and that's where school districts really need help. >> what do you think about the i guess carrot that he's dangling for schools that reopen? is that going to be sufficient? >> smaes that's something we're digging into more deeply right now. for some school districts, it may be. what we don't want is an arbitrary number that's designed to fit within certain budget constraints. what we want to do is see what's necessary and work backward from that and determine the school cost to open the school safely.

we're not trying to do this on a budget. that's where the local level needs to be involved. >> all right. i want to ask you, you talk about how this is a promising start. but i want to ask you, you know, isn't the plan coming six months too late in the sense that, look, is there any reason this couldn't have been laid out in the summertime and implemented in the fall when the case load was much, much lower in california. look at the timing to bring this out, right before january, when we're looking at possibly a new surge to reopen in february. how do you feel an that? is that realistic? >> certainly, we would have wanted this level of support four or five months ago and locals were crying out for that. we didn't get it but we're past the poip of recrimination. we are where we are at this time and we need to do everything possible to make sure we're getting kids back to school in a safe manner and we can't rush

that. sure, we wanted to states to take more action earlier but they're doing it now. we know more about the disease than we did then. we have a better idea of the total trajectory of how long this virus is going to last, because we have started the vaccination process, which is not running at the pace that we hoped it would, but we can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so i think the timing of the plan reflects that status. >> tony flint, spokesperson for the california school board organization, i know your organization will be at the table as they hammer this out. this framework for students to return. thank you for your time and insight today. take care. >> thank you. >> we'll take a short break. when we return it's officially here, right, the code 19 strap confirmed to be here in california. we'll ask dr. peter chin hong

all right. we are back. lots of covid news today from the vaccine to the uk variant now in california. yep, governor newsom just confirmed that this afternoon. joining us to answer your question is ucsf infectious specialist dr. hong. i want to start with the uk variant in southern california now is what we've heard as well as in colorado. what do you know about the cases here and also the two in colorado? >> well, i think we know about -- what we know about these cases is that it's probably widely spread in the community because all of them as we know it had no connection to the uk.

it means they didn't get it while in the uk. it mean they got it from someone else here who had it. it's just the tip of the iceberg, probably. >> tom barton, are you concerned? i'm guessing he means is it nor transmissible, is it more potent, what do we know and are you concerned? >> so right now we are assuming it's more transmissible, because in the uk and southeast england, it was about -- maybe it 25% prevalent in november, and by december, it had shot up to about 65% prevalent. it suggests that it became the dominant virus. it was also associated with a huge surge and they've not been keeping ahead of this particular wave of infection, so putting the two and two together and the

fact that this is a mutation of the protein which makes it stickier makes people think it's really, truly, more transmissible. >> i think that answer the viewers. i'm going to ask mine. there's one i heard out of south africa. is that the same as the uk varpt or different? >> it is different but it's similar in that it's probably more transmissible again. what they're doing is they're mutating the spike proteins and it just makes it stickier. it's almost like velcro with this new variant. it just sticks more to the cells. when you have the virus sticking on to the cells, the chances are it invading its increase, but it's a different one in south africa. >> ok. now, what does it take for a varpt to escape or

is that hard for a virus to achieve? >> yeah, it's pretty hard. it takes a while, like years, actually, for most viruss, if at all, and that's the difference in nomenclature between what's a different strain and a different variant. variant is variations on the theme. the virus is more sloppy when it makes itself. there's strains where your immune system doesn't recognize it anymore. that takes years and years for it to happen. >> ok. hey, alexis wants to know the covid pandemic, is it going to end by april, do you think, or is it going to ringlinger until fall next year? >> i think dr. fauci said we'll go back to somewhat normal by early fall. do you agree with that time line? >> i agree with the time line with the caveat that we're only as good as vaccinating not just

the u.s. but the world in gem as evidenced by this uk variant. what happens in the u.s. and what happens in the rest of the world doesn't stay there. this virus doesn't care which country you're in. unless we have a global strategy, much more u.s. strategy, we can't really beat this. >> something to think about this for sure. governor newsom's school reopening plan focuses on financial support, support for testing, masks, ppe, putting teachers in group 1 b or the next group, if you will. does that make sense to you? >> it takes total sense, because what we know -- now we have a bunch of data over the last few months from other schools where they've kept them open in times of surge. there's data about where transmissions are occurring. even early on we knew kids weren't getting as much covid. certainly they can but not as much as adults can, and there

was good study showing that they transmitted less as well. protecting the t-shirt is a great idea and providing support, amazing. >> all right. yeah. all the parents hoping that that data gives them some hope that we'll be moving that direction. vaccine news, i want to talk about that. new numbers show we are way lagging here in the u.s. we're at two million inoculated, nowhere near the 20 million that we set. we're behind israel, bahrain, the uk. why such a lag? >> i could spend hours talking about it. the top high points is we didn't invest in the distribution part. we invested the back end part of the vaccine. it costs a lot of money. they only got 340 million. we're far short of what the numbers we need and the funding

needed to set up these distribution plans. and it's a weird vaccine where you need to keep it in ultra cold temperatures, so multiple factors and we've never been successful with a national distribution. we can't even distribute mask, something simple like a 10 content mask efficiently. >> right. so does our decentralized health care system play a role? is that something to revisit when this is all said and done? >> certainly not having just one health system, not just health including information technology, too, because when you immunize someone with the covid vaccine, you have to keep track of it, because you have to come back the second month to get a second one. it costs a lot of money. >> indeed. robin has a question. any news on research on how soon we'd see a vaccine available for children under 16? >> i think that studies are --

well, i know the studies are happening in january from pfizer moderna but younger kids. i don't think they have to wait for kids to get covid, although that will be an outcome they will hook at. they can hook at a surrogate outcome, which is the antibody response after the vaccine, which will be faster than waiting months to see who gets covid and who doesn't. so the bottom line is sooner than later. by the time they come up in the cue, we should be data for them. >> i want to ask you about that johnson & johnson vaccine. i hear that's moving along and hopefully in february that will billion approved. give us an update. >> just one shot needed. novovax is going faster than expected. everyone thought astrazeneca

would be here in the u.s. it's approved in the uk but i think the fda is hemming and hau hawing. >> that's the key. all right doctor, thank you for your insight. always good to see you. >> same here. >> all right. taping care. when we return we'll have your application questions answers two weeks before the decline at a lot of places. a top bay area counsellor will

welcome back. this is go time for high school seniors before the decline jimmy between january 1st and the 15th. this is turning out to be a hugely stressful year for applicants. joining us to offer insight and tips is lauren cook, college

counselor at the jewish community high school of the bay. happy holidays, lauren. thanks for coming in virtually. >> of course. >> all right. so the regular round applications are due soon but the early rounds have been coming out. they offer some real surprises. i want to show this graphic to our viewers. this is dramatically different than past years. this shows college application rates at the ivy league schools, way up. 22 to 57%. the uc system up 15% and the cal state system, that's different. that's down 5%. what's going on here, lauren? >> really good question. this year continues to be a little bit wild. while i think some of this is conjecture at this point, with the very selective places, ivy

institutions. a rational choice from the colleges given the limited availability of testing but i think more students might have thought my test store is one barrier to my admission. now i can throw my had in the ring and it may have a better chance. the cause and effect is similar. but we may have the added layer of pandemic to the list as well. i have some options closer to home that might be more afford b. but yes, the numbers are where i'm really concerned, i'm a little disturbed, knowing that this is the largest four-year system in the country and that they serve a huge variety of first generation students and representative students, commuters, adult students and to see the con traction in applications is concerning and maybe due to some of the lack of in-person counselling that a

first year student might have at high school or maybe it they don't feel it's financially conceivable now. >> dropping the s.a.t., it seems like this year is harder than ever. i want to ask you, your goal is to reduce stress. for students who don't have an acceptance yet to a school they really want to attend, what advice would you give for the regular round? >> yeah. we've still got lots of chances to pay ply to. we've passed early decision one and some early action cases. early decision two which is a type of binding application, has some declines on january 1st. if you have a choice, if you're comfortable to committing to a school, it's a good strategic

option. otherwise, i would really return to your list, especially if it's heavy on the highly selected mace, a very low admit rate and think about adding at least one or two schools. there are some great broad access you could look at. university of ok, arizona state. there's some phenomenon liberal arts colleges that offer solid education. then of course a lot of the northern california have extended their application. they close that on tees 30th but many of them, you can still apply to. >> i want to ask you about financial aid and faxa. megan says faksa asked for information from 2019 but it's 2020 that impacts so many families financially. how will they reconcile it in terms of fm aid and what they'll

off students? >> really good question. we're actually seeing the total go down right now. it stands for the free application for federal student a aid. 2020s up ended everything for a lot of families. submit what they ask for but add an addendum to it, so if there are any updates, lost job, lost housing. once you receive your package you can consider an appeal if you feel there was something they didn't take into consideration or that happened when you file the forms and when you're actually thinking about committing to enrolling. >> great vice. we have about a minute. if a student has been deferred, what can they do if they really, really want to go to that school still? >> lots of defederals this december. i think the most important thing

is let the school know you're still interested in enrolling, if given a chance, arched should keep them updated on any new awards, activities. follow their instructions on what they want to hear and how they want to hear it. i think it's good to send them a concise update once or twice this winter. >> instead of weekly or daily. >> depends on how you do it. >> finally i think it's important to get a little perspective, which is so hard for teens. in all your years as a counselor, how common is it for students who didn't get into their dream school to come back later and tell you i'm really happy where i ended up? >> always. ef year. and i think that so many students, you know, end up somewhere different than where they imagined, because they often don't know the full range of opportunities that are out there. know that you will have a great

college experience at hit rally hundreds of places but the first step is to apply. if you haven't done that, get those forms in in the text couple of weeks. >> lauren, thank you so very much. don't go

thank you so much for joining us today on this interactive show getting answers. we spoke about governor newsom's new plan to reopen schools. and we talked about the covid-19 strain here in california but likely much more widespread here already. we'll be here every week day on air and live stream answering your questions.

abc7news coming up at 4:00, so i'll see you then. stick around for world news tonight, the breaking news just coming in. that new covid strain now spreading in the u.s. the more contagious variant first found in the uk confirmed in colorado. a member of the national guard. tonight, a second possible case there and now a confirmed case in california. the race to slow the virus as america records its deadliest day of the pandemic. more than 3,700 u.s. lives lost in just 24 hours. a 41-year-old just elected to congress dying from the virus in louisiana. and now soldiers called in to help at some of california's hospitals on the brink. plus, vaccine timeline trouble. as the nation falls far behind schedule. tonight, we have answers on why so few doses are making it into the arms of