building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. hello, everyone, i am kristen sze. we are watching getting answers live. we asked experts your questions every day at 3:00 to get answers for you in real time. today will talk about the billionaire's battle for space supremacy and when you might become a space tours. our favorite onomy professor joining us. and students return to school a month. booste, vaccines, and hesitancy.

joining us is dr. monica gandhi. it is good to see you. >> it is good to see. >> they are talking about the u.s. and us needing booster shots. it should be fairly long- lasting, but what are they looking at except for the bottom line? some skeptics say this about the money. what do you think? >> i agree. i cannot see why immunocompetent people would need a booster given what we know about immunology. we have some really good data that inform memory cells from the mrna vaccine. the go into the lymph node and those memory cells can last 90 years. we have seen and people who have the 1918 flu. 90 years later, they had these

cells still active. so, then those cells could release antibodies for various items. it does not seem indicative for immunocompetent people right now. not sure what pfizer's looking up. they could be looking at the fact that they said two weeks ago that there was a 64% effectiveness against the delta variant of the pfizer vaccine in israel for symptomatic covid. but in the uk and canada, says differently. much higher levels of effectiveness in larger data samples. >> what would be a in decatur to you of declining immunity and saying that you would need to have a booster? >> one thing is to consider it for immunocompromised people. in infectious disease, we do not, we often give boosters to those who are immunocompromised, even for no real world data, we just know that they might need them so we

give boosters. so maybe concentrating on that population first and the what we need to know about giving immunocompetent people boosters with real-world data. we have to see if people get sick and end up in the hospital at a rate that is not just normal breakthrough, because we do have low rate through infections and usually they are very mild. if they get sick ended up in the hospital at high rates with a specific variant, then we will get boosters. >> it is hard getting a certain segment of the population on board with getting both doses. i'm hearing of people skipping out after the first dose and not returning for the second. how do you encourage people to get the third shot, the booster, if that is determined to be what is needed? >> i really think -- the way that we will encourage the third shot is a routine thing, like we get routine vaccinations. what i'm hoping is that it will become an every 10 year thing and then just like you needed

your tetanus shot, you will get your covid vaccine after a long period of time, or, as the cases rise, that will make people want to get the vaccine. right now, young people are not coming back for the second shot, i hope they do come back for it, but it is understandable that younger people, it is hard for them to come back for preventive care. >> i want to talk what young people. that is a big trouble spot right now. less than 40% of people ages 18 to 29 have gotten at least one dose. what is the risk? when you consider the lifestyle and the habits of that age group, if they do not get vaccinated more? >> you know, the reason that they're not getting vaccinated more is, to be fair, they themselves are not as much of a risk with covid's older people. but we have always vaccinated people in the world to keep other people safe, to keep the virus from coming down. we are all getting, for example, the

measles vaccine when children are more at risk for severe applications for measles. the reason that the vaccine is also to protect everyone else and what i am hoping for is that college, when people return to college, that will be a benefit where they could get the second dose and then, i think need to do better messaging probably for young people that you are doing this to just keep everyone safe and they have had a hard year and i understand why they're not coming back, because they had a really hard year, but they're the ones who are the most around each other so i think we need to work on youth messaging. and not old people like us, but better community-based community. >> do you agree with tying vaccination requirements to be able to return to school? whether it is college or high school or grade school? >> so, college, even though we have to account for natural

immunity, even if you had it before, you is forgetting the side effect from the vaccine is higher so if we do that, we have to account for natural infection. but going back to schools for younger age school, children are really less at risk than adults for covid and i'm not sure we would be able to tie it as a mandate. i really think these are going to be the ethical questions that play out over the next year. >> it sounds like there is some activity behind you. i hope wherever they are going, the get there quickly and safely. daniel has a question for us here. he was so if someone recovered from covid last year and has not gotten the vaccine, are the chances of getting covid variant were likely than someone who is fully vaccinated? >> so this is a great question that is still being sorted out. literally, if you are in france, you would be told to get one dose. in germany you'd be told to not get any doses and here in the u.s., you'd be told to get two doses. this is how all over the map it

is with natural infection. i have actually been talking more to cdc and they're going to come out with a statement about acknowledging natural immunity, which does give you immunity. there is no question, that is why south dakota is not surging but others are, because it a lot of natural infection. terms of testing you from a variant, that is the thing about those cells is that it specifically said, and this makes sense, it is adaptive immunity. if you saw variant in the future, your cells from the blood marrow would adapt to that variant so, you may have lost immunity. but the party line in the u.s. is to get two doses and we have pretty good inside information anything that will be looked at and the question is, maybe just get one dose to boost your immunity while the virus is still circulating, which is what france does.

>> how well our the vaccinated detective against the delta variant right now based on the latest numbers? i know l.a. county, they have seen 3000 new cases in three days. does this say that delta variant is actually able to hit the people who are vaccinated? or is it mostly the unvaccinated? >> it really is mostly done vaccinated and sometimes were testing people who are asymptomatic and they are vaccinated and if you are asymptomatic and vaccinated and have a low viral load in your nose, that is a success of the vaccine. that we are not figure out a way to figure out if the pcr test shows if you have an infectious virus in your nose. we to take out the noise and bad testing and what is happening with the delta variant in vaccinated people. if you get a breakthrough infection, it is usually mild. this is true of all vaccine breakthroughs. there are some severe

breakthroughs which is true of every vaccine, but they do continue to be rare. .002%. >> last question in the 30 seconds that we have. we have to ask her what we're hearing about a rare nerve syndrome is associated with the johnson & johnson vaccine. >> yes. this action is been associated with many vaccines, it is very rare. there have been 10 cases of young bra which is a weakness in the nerves in 12.5 million people in the u.s. but there has not been any with the mrna. they're going to put a warning label for guillain-barre on the packaging. in the meantime, thank you for joining us today, we appreciate your insight. coming up next, the billionaire space race is on. what about space tourism?

we will talk about that. ufos and planets aligning. we wi hey, i just got a text from my sister. you remember rick, her neighbor? sure, he's the 76-year-old guy who still runs marathons, right? sadly, not anymore. -what, you mean-- -mhm. -just like that. -wow. so sudden. um, we're not about to have the "we need life insurance" conversation again, are we? no, we're having the "we're getting coverage so we don't have to worry about it" conversation. so you're calling about the $9.95 a month plan -from colonial penn? -i am. we put it off long enough. we are getting that $9.95 plan, today. (jonathan) is it time for you to call about the $9.95 plan? i'm jonathan from colonial penn life insurance company. sometimes we just need a reminder not to take today for granted. it could be the death of someone you know or a health scare. that's why today could be a great day to call for free information about colonial penn's $9.95 plan.

if you're age 50 to 85, you can get guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance starting at just $9.95 a month. there are no health questions so you can't be turned down for any health reason. this is permanent coverage. just pay your premiums for lifelong security. the $9.95 plan is colonial penn's number one most popular whole life plan. options start at just $9.95 a month. that's less than 35 cents a day. your rate can never go up. it's locked in for life. don't put it off. take the first easy step. call today for free information. and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner, so call now. (soft music) ♪ ♪

hello, colonial penn? welcome back. richard branson's trip to suborbital space is so much to talk about. sounds like a conversation to have with and astronomy of us are here. who is here, repressor andrew fraknoi. so nice to see you. good afternoon . >> good afternoon. it is nice to be with you. >> i can see that you are still giddy from that flight yesterday. next week, amazon founder jeff ,i to ask you, a lot of

people are going, what exactly are these space billionaires doing? throw well with spacex. just quickly tell us what to they're trying to do. >> the two separate questions here. one is what each person trying to do for their ego and what we're trying to do for spaceflight in general. this is a big race between a billionaire with big egos to be the first was to get into space. the interesting thing from the point of view of space enthusiasts is that on the flight that richard branson was on, it did not quite get up to where the international definition of space begins. so, jeff basals was quick to point out that in fact, richard branson was in suborbital earth atmosphere neighborhood and not in outer space, whereas jeff basals is going to get a little higher and he is going to go into the official outerspace

area. >> where is the official line? i heard that branson was being officiated as having gone to space. he has earned his astra nights wings, so he did achieve no gravity. he was there for a few minutes. where is the line, if you will? >> first, you can achieve no gravity by dropping an airplane much lower down. so that is not a big deal, but, it is the difference between where the united states says an astronaut gets his wings and where the rest of the world does. we say it is 50 miles, the rest the world says 60 miles an that is the difference between the two billionaires. >> okay. all right. so, elon musk, why is he going? he announced today, i have a virtual ticket to the virgin galactic. he is funding his own space missions and tourism and

colonization through space. what is going up with >> exactly, this is the other part of your good question, which is why are commercial companies going up into space in the first place? this is a deliberate effort on the part of nasa to have commercial contractors do some of what the government used to do. nasa hires these companies to launch things, to bring supplies or people up to the international space station to try new kinds of vehicles, new kinds of orbital experiments, et cetera. this is the new trend in the united states and having personal space instead of government space. >> okay, so you tell me, so that you definitely think that there are potential benefits for mankind, but some are criticizing this beginners' space were at the time of global warming, especially. i heard one progressive thought leader saying that this is a

sign that capitalism is out of control when we have heat waves and wildfires. do you agree with that? >> politics are below my department. i am only an astronomer but i will say that for most of us in the sciences, it is a pity that so much of the money about space is being put into people going up, rather than robots and telescopes. we would learn a lot more about the universe if that money were devoted to missions like the rover on mars, which is doing amazing things on mars. it'll helicoptered drone on mars, or some of the space craft we have in orbit around jupiter and other places, so, astronomers are always eager to get the telescopes into space and not so much people. people are the stuff of science fiction and that is where a lot of the world's audience is most interested. >> that is the glamorous stuff.

do you think space tourism will actually be accessible to many people very soon? i mean, so richard branson, certainly tried to sound that note. >> so, space tourists are going up now. we know that in the spacecraft for jeff basals, he sold one tourist seat on auction for $20 million. we do not know who it is but somebody paid $20 million to go up with him. tourism is here, ladies and gentlemen. we have already had some go up already. but, this seems to be the trend and that may help pay for some of the costs of exploration. >> all right. tourism pays the cost for expiration and exploration is what you need before colonization. i want to ask we think a timeline might be. he says that spacex will launch the first on crude mission. when will the first man to crew

be possible? >> nobody knows. the difficulty of sending humans to mars is so much greater than sending robots to mars. there are a lot of difficulties. imagine if we sent a crew to mars and something went wrong and they could not take off? and they essentially were then condemned to death on mars on live television. this is not the sort of thing that we really want to have happen. so i think a lot more precautions need to be taken before people are ready to go to mars. >> would it be easier to colonize the moon or mars? >> mars is a much more inviting environment. the moon is small and the gravity is low. there is no air which is really embarrassing if you want to take a deep wrath. so mars has a thin atmosphere. we softer bring air with us, but to mars is much more of a planets that resembles the

earth. if you want to colonize and set up permanent habitats, that is a safer place. on the other hand, the moon is a lot closer. there's a good chance we will have some scientific equipment on the moon and maybe occasionally people, long before we will have it on mars. >> i agree it. i would rather live on mars, anyway. let's talk about something that is accessible to all of us, clouds willing, perhaps i should speak with spencer christian about this. but the planetary conjunction tonight. mars and venus will look super close together, like there almost touching. what is happening? >> this is just a coincidence in the paths around the sun. but if you got tonight, about 45 minutes after sunset and look low in the west, you will see the view of the western part of the horizon. if you would go toward the west, mars and venus will be so close together that there almost touching.

venus will be the really bright one and mars will be the red one and just a little bit above it to the left is a beautiful crescent moon, so it will be hard to mrs. if you have a view to the west. as long as it is not foggy or cloudy like it is in much of san francisco. >> how frequently might we get this view? i'm trying to way that when i decide if i should go out there and look. >> it will be good tomorrow night so if you miss it tonight, tomorrow night at 9:15, you will see the same view with the moon further away. the next time they will be this close will be 2034. you might want to try to see it this time if you are an astronomy fan. through binoculars you should be able to see it very nicely. if you have a pair of inoculates, grab them and go out right after sunset tonight, looking low in the west. >> all right, professor andrew fraknoi. thank you so much. it was so much fun talking

you and learning from you. let's do it again soon. >> take care. >> san francisco unified school dist

when school resumes in a little more than a month for most students, they will face new covid protocol. san francisco unified is trying to ease the anxiety with a page from the corporate america playbook. maintaining customer service hotlines. here to speak of this is the family partnership specialist. denied pronounce your name correctly? >> you did. >> great. thank you. the help line is not new. i will point did it launch during the pandemic? >> it launched at the beginning of the pandemic. we realize that families were going to need information and have lots of questions about the many changes that the district went through during

the beginning of the pandemic, so we opened our resource link line for our families and eventually, we opened up for students and staff. >> what is the number to call? >> it is 415-340-1716 >> what kind of questions did you get a lot of? and also, did you have folks who is able to answer it in multiple languages? >> what at first we were getting a lot of technology questions for our families. then we went straight to virtual learning, sweet questions about laptops and electronics and our technology support and we do have agents that speak different languages, we have live spanish and cantonese and mandarin agents.

and agents that are experts in technology and enrollment and provide resources as well. >> that is fantastic. i knew during the pandemic when the school was closed in person, you have a couple dozen different workers dedicated to this. used to be able to have all of these people working on customer service now the kids are going back to school in person and i am thinking that people will be reassigned back to the classroom and things like that? >> we are getting it ready and transitioning to have agents come in and this will be the role. so we would have folks coverifok the lines and families of students and staff can have access for information both at the sites and also by calling or emailing the link. >> the start with a donation from the san francisco based tech company, how would be fun to going forward? >> i am not sure about how we will continue to have it funded but i know that they have been

very helpful in providing us the resources. >> getting lots of calls right now already. even before the school year starts, about whether or not to masks will be needed outside of the playground or inside of the classroom. what you tell them? there is a lot of confusion because the cdc says they're not needed but in california, they say that masks are needed at the schools. i assume that means indoors and out. what are you telling folks? >> right now, we're giving them the information that our board members are providing as to the fall semester gets closer, we will provide more information that will continue into the fall semester. but for right now, we are wearing masks for the summer. >> the california state schools website cites several key things to ensuring a safe return to school. among them ventilation, testing, and contact tracing. how is san francisco unified addressing these particular safety measures? >> we have a protocol that is

being followed at our sites. also the protocol with all the specific things that you mentioned and we have tracking information and support. we also have the resource link line and have a line specifically for the staff questions and covid concerns and we have nurses on the line that are experts with the protocol that could help them follow the protocols correctly. >> list of the number out there were more time. >> sure, it is 415-340-1716

great conversations today. i really enjoyed them. all right. thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show,

getting answers. talked with the latest with covid-19, vaccine boosters that pfizer is saying that we need, the variance and guidelines and we also spoke about space tonight, news involving two of the vaccines here in the u.s. the new warning. and a key meeting. first, the fda with that new warning for the johnson & johnson vaccine. the one-shot vaccine. now warning of a very rare nerve condition. the cdc reporting about 100 cases now under investigation out of about 13 million johnson & johnson shots. they say the benefits still far outweigh the risks. and news tonight on pfizer, after that company indicated millions of americans could soon need a booster shot, a third shot, tonight, they are now meeting with federal health officials about that possibility. dr. anthony fauci tonight on this. did pfizer get out ahead of the data, out ahead of the government? but the president tom line here, could it one day be needed? israel tonight moving forward with that booster. and the delta variant spreading

quickly here i