abc7, committed to building a better bay area. >> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions, this is abc7 news. >> you are watching "getting answers" live on abc7, hulu live and wherever you stream. we're asking experts your questions everyday at 3:00 to get answers for you in realtime. today we'll cover the reopening of schools and see what the plan is here in the bay area as kids are getting ready to get back to campus. we'll also talk mental health. bush, first, another day and unfortunately, another major covid-19 headline. the cdc says the t pears to call severe illness ans

easily as chickenpox. so joining us right now is story about federal vaccinations. >> reporter: tonight with covid numbers similar to last year's surge, president biden is putting new restrictions. >> everybody will be able to test to their vaccination status. anyone who does not test or is not vaccinated will be required to mask, no matter where they work. >> reporter: it impacts more than 4 million workers including contractors and members of the military. president biden is pushing the private sector hard to do more on mandates. >> we all want our lives to get

back to normal. fully vaccinated workplaces will make that happen more quickly and more successfully. >> reporter: the state is urging states to give $100 incentives to those who get shots. more than 2.7 million shots were administered in the past week. it's up 18% from the prior week. all right, moving on now fears over the delta variant. those are sending shock waves across the industry and wedding days. >> how are people feeling out there? >> nervous. >> reporter: this bay area

wedding planner is talking about nervous brides to be who have been postponing over and over. >> there are still lot of unknowns. people are getting nervous about the delta, asking to move up the date sooner. >> reporter: the fear is another lockdown, but speeding up the big day is tough when there's no venue it party. >> everything is booked up >> ian and his wife got married last summer but postponed the reception until october 2021 when it was safe to gather, now that's uncertain. >> talking about making it an explicit requirement that everybody be vaccinated. >> everyone's anxious and nervous. >> this wedding planner has clients who want rapid covid testing done for all guests

going to the chapel. >> this is the way it is making sure we're safe. once alcohol gets involved, the masks come off. >> reporter: the best advice to avoiding the wedding bell blues, be flexible >> everybody needs to have a backup plan and they need a backup plan to their backup plan. >> reporter: that means keeping the wedding small and moving it to next year to 2023 if you can. there's another option, e lowing. reporting for abc7 news. all right. we do want to apologize. we have a technical issue. as we work through it, we want to bring you another story. so stay tuned if you're joining us live on facebook. students are preparing for in-person learning in a few weeks. there are some families

serious concerns. palo alto unified school synew syem >> reporter: the to serve the roughly 600 students who say they're uncomfortable to returning to in-person instruction. >> i proposed the contract with strive. >> reporter: students who don't want to be in the classroom this fall will be taught remotely by a third party service. >> we'll contract this out to professionals who do this as their sole purpose. >> reporter: every public school district is now required to offer a remote learning option to those who kneel they would be put at rest being by returning in person. part of the law governor newsom on july 9th. >> it will be by the skin of

our teeth it get students registered. i don't know what our legislators think it takes to run a school district but if they think they can spin up something in three weeks, they're out of touch. >> reporter: the estimated cost is about 3,000 per student with an estimated cost of $1..8 million. he said during that tim the district had zero spread. >> this was prevaccination. so we continue to believe school sites are the safest place you can be. >> reporter: while the district is welcoming them to return to reporting for abc7 news. >> all right. we're going to talk more about the return to school in just ju

moment. let's circle back to our special correspondent dr. patel. we talked about this internal memo that was really razing red flags. what was your takeaway? i had to read it two times we i learned it was more traps missable than ebola. it sounds scary. >> it comes down to how much the viral load is giving to both vaccinated and unvaccinated. the report that came out by confident after that cluster in provincetown highlights this. it shows people who wered have but still testing positive posi covid. these rake threw cothese breakthrough infections will still be mild. you're right. this is one of the most

contagious respiratory diseases we have seen. >> there's a little bit of a silver lining. if you happen to get covid after you're vaccinated, it almost feels like covid is something we're going to have a deal with and live with indefinitely going forward. >> it might be. the term scientists are using is that it's endemic. we'll learn how to live with it. the other takeaway, there is proof new that vaccinated individuals can still transmit the virus. you can have some of viral particles in your nose and transfer it to someone who is unvaccinated who will get seriously ill. so individuals should still keep masks on if they're in crowded indoor settings. >> do you know how the

vaccination rates are. i saw some for mississippi and alabama. i'm not sure they're getting the message that with this new event they really need to take action. >> they really do. we're at 50%, about 50% being vaccinated. people who are more likely to got it already got it. now we'ring to to reach the vaccine hesitant. two things seem to be one is when state leaders conservative leaders reach out. will are stories of friends, families, winding up on ventilators. we want to avoid the latter. >> the imagery is stark and it

hits home. dr. patel, i know we didn't have much time but thank you for join. for sure. next, we'll talk to a supentendent a when a truck hit my car, the insurance company wasn't fair. i didid't t kn whahatmy c caswa, so i called the barnes firm. i'm rich barnes. it's hard for people to k how much their accident case is worth.h barnes. t ouour juryry aorneneys hehelpou

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thank you so much for staying with us, everybody. schools across california are preparing to open campuses to bring students back full-time. the question is what will it look like. so joining us now to talk about the reopening of schools is san francisco usd deputy superintendent gentle life.

thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> when do students go back to class? >> in san francisco we reopen schools on august 16th. >> okay. so it's just around the corner. we mentioned it's making headlines today. there's a new report about how easily transmissible the delta variant is. does that change any decisions of the school district. >> we are in constant communication with the health officials in the bay area and the state and we're monitoring it closely. what we're hearing from both the public health officials and usf, we're working with doctors there, what we're hearing, while it is concerning that the delta variant appears to be rapidly growing and can be transmitted bid have people, that what does remain to be

true is that we have very few cases of school-based transmission including now while our schools aren't open. there are many summer schools that are operating and child care programs. in the city of san francisco we have not had any of those with covid transmission linked to them. similarly, when we opened in the spring we had no known school-based transmission. so what we do know is we know how to safely reopen schools. even though what's happening now is very concerning, we don't believe this poses any new unknown risks that would prevent us from being able to reopen as we're planning. >> and that is texas encouraging news i railroad the data from last school year as well. so what exactly will change in the classroom? are there precautions in play? i remember the american

association of pediatrics had this multilayered approach to keeping kids safe. >> yes and we are planning for that multilayered approach first before any child comes to school, we're asking that families do a covid screening at home. we have shared all of those questions with the families. we have mailed it and it is ready available on line. if your child has any symptom, we ask that you keep them home. this sis a change for what it might have been like precovid if your child had a headache or runny knows. you might have thought you would send them to school anyway. we ask not to send them with symptoms. if they do have symptoms, we will be sending them home. first, that helps with keeping people out who may be exhibiting symptoms. secondly, we we get to school, we'll make sure we have plenty of opportunities for students

to wash their hands and exercise precaution with hand sanitizers and being clean. we're also going to require universal masking for adults and students regardless of vaccination status when they're indoors. the other thing we're working on as we speak is making sure all of the classrooms across the city and that's thousands and thousands of classrooms have good vaccination. that comes in the form of windows that are open or air purifiers >> you mentioned masking. it is challenging to keep a mask on a child at times. are there any repercussions from those who refuse this wear a mask and how do you encourage a young person to keep it on all day long? >> we had less challenges with

that when we opened in the spring than you might have thought, even with our youngest children. we had our preschools open, kindergarten. we really are grateful to our families because i think we had a lot of practice. students are coming to school having had, unfortunately, gone through this pandemic for quite some time. so we are ready to support them with keeping their mask on. we have masks on hand as well in case they show up and don't have a mask unless they have a doctor's note that says for some reason they're in the able to mask, that would be the requirement. >> perhaps because of some type of disability or other circumstance. we do have a question from a viewer named susie who wants to know do parents need to vaccinate. that brings me to vaccination requirements for the staff and

faculty. >> i'm glad, susie, you're asking about vaccinations. we're encouraging as i know many people are from our president all the way through the community that anybody who can be vaccinated get vaccinated. it remains the safest solution for this challenge right now. it is really our way of protecting each other as best we possibly can. so we've been losing vaccination clinics at our school sites. weave been sending out afternoon messages, text messages and encouraging anyone 127 and up to get vaccinated. we'res will, in terms of the faculty, they had an opportunity to be vaccinated starting last spring. we asked our faculty to report to us when they've been vaccinated. what we're doing now is ramping up our verification process and we're assessing whether or not there's a flowed this mandate

it because we are currently assessing are there people on our staff hop haven't been vaccinated yet. we vice president approached that when this comes to our student population. it's a valid question and it's all still under consideration. >> i do need to ask you because this goes hand in hand, we only have about a minute left. you spoke about vaccinations but testing. are there any plans in place. many workplaces are doing reg a theory, mandatory testing. will that be implemented in any way? >> we did test last spring. we found very, very few cases at all. when we did the contact tracing, they were not based on school transmission. we are currently testing and we're encouraging students and staff who would like to get tested to come to one of our sites to do that and they can go to our website top find out

where to get the free testing. what we have not finalized is our mechanism for testing as we come back to school. its had not been required. it's not guidance that public health officials are asking us to follow. we're still analyzing that situation on whether or not we need to do that to make sure that we're as safe as possible. >> okay. we'll keep a figure on the pulse. we'll be checking in the near future. thank you.

this unplugged device is protecting our beautiful coastlines and more. put off chores and use less energy from 4 to 9 pm to help keep our state golden. mehealth continues to make headlines as simone biles pulse out of the olympics to focus on her mental health. there are concerns that more

mental health professionals-to- should handle certain 911 calls. in order to do that we need more people trained to help. joining us is dr. dan gizzo, the director of kaiser permanente and a kaiser permanente employee and also a student at the academy. doctor, thank you for joining us. what are people learning? >> we're excited about the new practice kaiser permanente is working to increase the number of mental health professionals in california. so we started an innovative new program that gives employees who are passionate about mental health the opportunity to go back to school and pursue mental health degree studies such as masters degree in

therapy, social work, even doctor in clinical psychology. this is a project we're doing to address the projected workforce shortages. >> yes. i think this is a really big deal. as i mentioned during the commercial break, mental health is something we focus on at abc7. we've been through it with the pandemic. i want to bring in fione. i feel people are driven top act based on personal experiences. what led you to sign up with the program. >> i was interested in mental health for much of my life. people already confided in myself and i considered to be a good listener. however, it wasn't until after grading and i considered going to school even though i had a passion to become a therapist. so in that financial bind of

mind of being admittedly nervous of working full too many and being a student, that's when i knew that i still wanted to continue going to school but the opportunity presented itself at kaiser permanente. they were going to support employees returning back to school. that's when i knew i needed to apply to the program. >> sometimes we feel like it's such a challenge, right, to accomplish all of these things as you're working full-time. to have a company to provide this for you to make that barrier easier is really key. i do want to get back to dr. gizzo. oh, looks like we lost our signal with him. we apologize. hopefully we can get back with him. while we have you fione, why do you think we're seeing an increase in people with mental

anxieties. of course it's related to the pandemic but what are you seeing? >> i think it's related -- the tab boo is no longer what it was. people are prioritizing their mental health. so i really think that increase is due to people just recognizes that mental health is just as important as physical health. >> that is true. i hope people can understand that. we have dr. gezzo back. we have a minute left. five, ten years down the road, what do you hope for this program and, also, how can people get involved >> good question. what we hope for is not only will we bring new people into our mental health profession but we will increase diverse ti. california is a very diverse state and we'd like to see a

mental health workforce that's a better match to the communities that we live. so that's one of our aspirational goals. currently the program is open to kaiser permanente employees across the state of california. they can get in up with us at the internal website at the kaiser permanente academy. >> perhaps in the future, never know. dr. gizzo and fionne ma. we'l

>> thank you so much for

joining us today on this interactive show "getting answers." delta variant, reopening of t, two alarming f headlines in the battle against covid. an internal document from the cdc saying the war has changed because of the delta variant, officials warning it's just as contagious as chickenpox, spreading faster than the common cold. one person possibly infecting up to nine others. vaccinated people transmitting the virus as easily as the unvaccinated. the cdc also revealing what was behind reversing guidance on masks. the covid outbreak in provincetown, massachusetts. nearly 900 cases, 74% of them fully vaccinated. now this cruise ship repor outbreak of its own. dr. ashish jah here tonight.