i'm thanks for joining us. you're watching "getting answers." we ask experts everyday at 3:00 to get answers in real time. today we'll talk with assembly member evan lowe introducing the state bill to conform conservatorship. this comes in the middle of the battle involving britney spears. we'll get into the voting rights in escalated to a national federal issue. you heard one of the symptoms of covid is loss of sm some continue to suffer after

they recover. ucf doctor is working to help o smell. joining us now is dr. patricia loftot. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> how common is loss of smell in covid patients during their illness? >> so actually it's a very common symptom. if you look at the literature, it's a little widespread in terms of the actual numbers. i would say, i would quote around 80 to 90% patients that contract covid experience a loss of taste or smell. >> many are actually having complete loss of smell. some will say it's more of a decrease. most of them notice very big change in their normal sense of smell. >> okay. what percentage do you think still reports symptoms or suffering from that after they recover from covid? >> yeah.

so the data is showing that about 75 to 80% of patients who have smell loss of covid will fully recover that sense of smell in the first few weeks. they usually recover their sense of smell as they recover from covid. most patients. then moving on to about the six month mark, more patients start to regain their sense of smell. we get to 95% of patients saying their sense of smell has come back. there's the tiny percentage of patients that continue to notice smell loss past the six month mark after they have been improved from their covid infection. >> okay. then i wonder if some of them also, it's not all or nothing. they don't just smell anything. some of them don't smell it the same way. things smell differently. just kind of altered. does that happen? >> that is true. that means that normal smells

smell different to patients and we actually look at that as a sign that their smell is starting to return. when you have odd smells, we think maybe the nerves are trying to regenerate or reconnect. that's somewhat of a better prognosis than continuing to have no sense of smell at all. >> this is really interesting. so many comments from viewer who is have had covid. maggie, louise have been suffering from loss of smell, things don't smell the same. for christie, it's eight months later, this is interesting. she says perfume smells like gasoline to me. wow. >> absolutely. that's not uncommon. i will say that the fact you are starting to smell something that is hopeful things are starting to come back and regenerate those neuro connections are

really fighting to normalize. i would not rule out that your sense of smell will not come back. >> christie also mentioned taste. that's also not the same. the two are connected. >> absolutely. much of our taste comes from our sense of smell. a lot of flavor comes from smelling the food. in covid, you may not have damage to your taste buds but you may notice a change in your taste. your smell is not functioning normally. >> let's talk about how to treat that. that is what you do for someone that comes to you and says help me restore my sense of smell. what do you do with them? >> so really we don't have many treatment options for smell loss. one that has been shown to work and patients have had improvement with this is something called old packto training or sniff training. you may hear different ways of

describing it. this basically entails different sense of essential oils. from different groups. so considering different scents like fruity or floury. i like to tell me patients to try the scents of rose or lavender. eucalyptus, clove, lemon. basically what you do is get each of these essential oils, sniff all four of them for 15 seconds twice a day. you do that for a few weeks. then we evaluate. >> as you sniff them, you want to know what that what that wha and impreferential that. impartial. it's physical therapy for your smell nerves. you're trying to get

connections to work again as you sniff those scents and think about what it is. >> how long will they go through that before they reap the benefits? >> i like patients to do it 12 weeks before we check to see if there has been any improvement. some patients will notice changes within the first few weeks. some patients it takes longer. i think that after a few months if people haven't noticed improvement, it's hard to continue with the training. three months is a good cut off to determine whether it's helping and whether you want to continue with it. >> okay. look, michelle is also sharing with us too. she recovered and had lost her taste and smell three months. she says chocolate and coffee taste terrible. those are two of my biggest joys when it comes to

food. she says pineapple doesn't taste the same. did you notice a pattern of which foods tend to be the ones people relate differently with or sense differently? >> that's an interesting question. it is looked into. we do wonder if the virus is is affecting certain supporting cells that are going to damage certain receptors. in that case, there may be certain smells and tastes that are affected more on covid than say another type of virus. we haven't worked that out but it's a possibility. >> what's different from covid as related to viral smell losses, a lot of patients don't complain of nasal congestion, obstruction.

when you're having inflammation in your nose, that's a reason to have smell loss because the odorants can't get some patients have a receptor that the virus attaches to. so it's called the ace receptor. so if those supporting cells are damaged then the nerves are not working well. that's what we think is going on. that's what's being studied. >> this is not just inconvenience. not having accurate sense of smell to humans is dangerous. i have had patients that had food poisoning multiple times. they can't smell if food is spoiled. you have to be diligent about labeling your food. you have to always check your smoke alarms are working. you have to check your gas

stoves are turned off. it's absolutely not a quality of life issue but a health issue as well. >> all right. look, in all discussions we have right now about getting vaccinated, there can be break through cases. perhaps the impact on you is a little different if if you've been vaccinated. have you treated people that got covid and had the loss of smell? >> i have only treated people with covid smell loss that have not been vaccinated. i had a patient who noticed changes in smell after getting the vaccine but that improved pretty quickly. she's not sure if she had covid. i will say ever since the vaccine has been available, i have seen less cases of covid smell loss. >> all right. one last question real quick before we go. i wonder if there's medical solutions too if it's not sniff training like

steroids or anything else. s i think there will be more options in the future. more are looking into this. there's more research being done. i'm hopeful for patients that don't benefit from smell training we will have something else to offer them. >> your work is so important. i've been trying not to say what type of doctor you are out of fear of getting it wrong. hatime. t do itear, e,ro ct.

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the judge approved spears request to hire her own attorney in the battle. the top superstar's case is shining a spotlight on problems with conservatorships. a bay area lawmaker introduced the bill to reform the system in california. >> good to see you. >> i've got to ask you, what do

you think has happened to britney spears and her case? >> i hope you have a chance to watch the documentary or kept up to speed on the ever changing situation she's in. >> we need to make sure laws are in place to help those that cannot protect themselves. >> i want you to talk to me about what your advocating in just a bit. i want to say it was shocking to a lot of us. she didn't know she could petition to end the conservatorship. she's been unhappy 13 years.

just imagine if you're someone without these type of resources. that's what this legislation intends to do, make sure individuals are empowered to know their rights, what they're entitled to and making sure government is there to assist and left hand is talking to the right hand. >> there's many ways to propose doing this through ab 1194. talk about the different ways it would protect people if you will conservators like spears. >> there are many actors and players in terms of the conservatorships. under the bureau and other courts, left hand doesn't always talk to the right hand. we need to make sure they're talking to each other. we don't know kristin to what extent these circumstances are that pervasive. we know about the britney spears circumstance. what about everyday californians. unfortunately because of this high profile case and piece of investigation, we've

had countless calls from californiaens throughout the state sharing their heartbreaking stories of similar circumstances that they are equally in. we need to pull the curtain back and say to best assess the situation for the state of california. here's the thing. we actually don't know to what extent this is a problem. how much are in a similar circumstance like this. we require reports that the legislator, the oversight and accountability perspective to insure we're asking that question. who's involved, how many people, what type of problems do we see? >> right. i think you're saying you also want more penalties and consequences for conservators that used their power. give conservators the about to pick their own lawyer instead of one approved by the court. are those elements that would return the power to the conservator? >> that's right. they should be em

know rights. we want to pretent as much as possible. we have full disclosure the burden be flipped to prove that yeah i should still be in charge of if other person's money, estate? >> that's what we're talking about to insure we're actually having a system set up to help the individual that actually needs the assistance and have the safeguards in place to protect them. remember, kristin, we think about conservatorships this is an individual in a circumstance to which they often times cannot take care of themselves. it should be that of the state to help insure the

protections are in place to help them. not to allow this type of abuse. there are many good actors this case. we've seen vulnerabilities. that's what we're trying to. i watched the netflix movie. she's fleecing all these older folks and ruining their lives. i wonder, that's a movie. how often does it actually happen? >> that's part of the problem. again, i referenced it earlier to which we said we don't know. that's what we're requiring this report back to the state to best figure out how big of a problem is.

anecdotally we have people that lost family members who did not know what to do in this difficult circumstance l. >> tragic. reform is needed. assemblyman low, you're the vice chair of the api legislative caucus. you work many hats and work to secure $156 million in the state budget to go towards fighting anti asian hate. talk about what that means, what we'll see as a result of that money in the budget. >> the state of california helped make history and be responding to the stopping with the $165 million going to data collection, going to grant funding for schools to help on anti bullying efforts to help with ethnic need i can't and inform and educate. because of platforms of you and so many others allow us to recognize the importance of the community. this is a statement that values kristen that of state budget to say we are going to stand in

solidarity and respond effectively with the resources accordingly. >> always good to see you. thanks so much. take care. >> good to see you. >> talk to you soon. next, we'll get to latest with texas democrats that fled the state d now urging congress to pass federal voting rights legisl

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xade me d.c.fter fleeing their state in a desperate stall tactic to keep republicans from passing bills to make it harder for it to vote in state of texas. pushing for a bill to make voting and now pressuring congress to push voting rights legislation. joining us to pass the voting rights and more how it matters in california is matthew cole, professor of law at uc hastings. thanks for joining us. >> pleasure to be with you. dramatic stuff. never seen before at least i

haven't. over 50 democrats getting on a plane, out of their state in the dark of night. what's their play here? >> basically there's a split in the texas legislator. half of them want the republicans in the state legislator to negotiate what the voting bills ought to contain. the other half want to completely stop the process in texas until congress has a chance to pass federal voting rights legislation that would prevent the things that the republican party and texas wants to do. >> let's get to the federal legislation a little bit. i warrant to ask you. did this work? can democrats deny the republicans in texas if they stay away long enough? how long can they do that for? >> if they stay away and stay out of state, in texas you need more than a simple majority for a quorum. democrats have enough.

if they all leave, there's no quorum so the texas house can't do anything. the texas authorizes law enforcement officers to arrest legislators when the legislator is in session and force them to come to austin, take them into custody and forcibly bring them to austin and bring them into the chamber. however, texas law enforcement officers don't have authority outside the state of texas. if they want to do that, the legislators have got to be in texas if they want to stop. if democrats want to stop the house from going forward, they've got to stay out of state. >> democrats and critics of bills call them voter investigation. republicans and supporters of bills call them reform. break down these elements and bills so we understand what they're trying to do and why those things. >> well, the bills cover a whole series of different things. for the most part, what they do

is make it more difficult for individuals to vote. so texas which already has a stringent voter i.d. requirement and wants to make the voter id requirements more stringent, texas wants to eliminate a number of things texas county did trying to make it easier for them to vote. harris county let people vote drive-thru, holding places 24 hours to take care of people that couldn't get away from the work place or arrange for child care. the state legislation wants to ban counties from doing all those things. harris county sent people something that in lots of vote by mail states like california, which is every year you get an application. if you want a mail-in ballot, you send the application back and get the ballot. >> on paper, makes it harder to vote. it's neutral on paper as in there's no race

mentioned or socioeconomic status mentioned. what is the practical reality? >> i think nobody is entirely sure about that. one thing that they're sure of taking aim at. longer hours, vote by mail, drive through voting are guess proportionately used by black and latino voters. thinking is if you put these in effect, they'll make it difficult for black and latino voters to vote. this is important. rural republican voters rely heavily on mail-in ballots. there's a possibility the texas republican party shooting itself in the foot with this. it may make it more difficult for one of its core constituents to vote. >> texas is one of many states passing these types of legislations now. what is the collective impact of states passing new laws? as why should we in california

pay close attention? >> well because the california doesn't elect the president of the united states by himself. sometimes we think we do. california doesn't elect the senate and house of representatives. the way these bills go in effect could have a profound effect on who's the president of the united states and who controls the federal congress. it's very important. >> don't go away. matthew coles, let's continue to have this conversation over on facebook live. we need to take a quick break

thank you so much for joining us on this

interactive show getting answers. today we talk in depth about the loss of smell with covid-19, conservatorship reform, and latest with voting rights. we'll be here everyday at 3:00, on air and tonight, the major news on the coronavirus. cases spiking. the u.s. now seeing an average of 1,000 new cases an hour. just moments ago, los angeles county saying it will not reimplement a mask mandate, requiring residents to wear masks while indoors, regardless of vaccination. cases now on the rise in at least 45 states, fueled by this delta variant. all of this comes as the u.s. surgeon general today warned of an urgent threat. he says the misinformation concerning covid vaccines on social media and elsewhere. across the country, tennessee's former vaccine chief says she was fired after trying to get the word out on vaccines and teens. tonight, the state health department responding. in utah, authorities

investigating covid cases linked to ten summer