>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. >> i'm julian glover. you are watching getting answers. we are asking experts your questions every day right here at 3:00 p.m., getting you answers in real time. today, we will be talking more in depth about the fda giving full approval to the pfizer vaccine and what that means for mandates. we begin with an epidemiologist, dr. george rutherford. thank you for being with us this afternoon. >> pleasure. julian: if you are watching us

on facebook live, drop the questions into the comments section and we will pass them on. dr. fauci today saying, if an overwhelming amount of people get the vaccine, we could be returning to normal, and we use air quotes there, by spring of 2022. what do you think about the timeline? do you agree with the thinking? >> i think it's a fair statement. we may have crested the current wave of the epidemic in california, certainly in san francisco, we have. the question is what happens in winter, when everybody comes inside. we have a similar situation last year -- we had a similar situation last year. everything took off in october. the question is, what's going to happen. in order to keep that huge surge from happening, we have to have tons of people vaccinated, lots

more than currently are vaccinated in the u.s. something like 53% of everybody has been vaccinated fully. california is more like 56%. we have a ways to go. julian: we are a little bit better than that in the bay area, sitting at around 65%. the boundaries of counties here in the bay area, folks can still travel back and forth, so it doesn't protect us from other parts of california that might have a greater amount of who are unvaccinated -- of folks who are unvaccinated. doesn't put us in a better position, having a higher -- does it put us in a better position, having a higher rate of vaccination? >> yes, it does. that's not to say we can't have cases among those who are vaccinated. we do, and we will. but we have so much, using

forest fire analogies, so much less fuel in the undergrowth and under -- other places, we will be able to keep things under better control than other places will be able to this winter. julian: some good news there. the cdc says vaccination effectiveness rank -- dropped against the delta variant. people using this as a reason not to get the shot. what do you have to say to those naysayers? >> you need to get vaccinated. if the only real protection, the definitive protection we have. -- it is the only real protection, the only definitive protection we have. masks and social distancing are great, but vaccination is the ticket. there is some concern there is waning immunity, and that's why we are moving to getting a booster dose this fall. i think that will kick things way up. that will be at the right time,

just as the potential fall/winter surge would start up. i think it will be at the right time. i encourage everyone to get vaccinated. julian: big news yesterday, that the fda giving the pfizer vaccine that full approval. obviously, we are not quite there yet with the moderna vaccine or the j&j vaccine either. i want to bring in a viewer comment, asking why the other vaccines haven't been approved so far. the moderna vaccine was a few weeks behind pfizer and getting the original emergency use authorization -- in getting the original emergency use authorization. >> the manufacturers have applied for them. the j&j is about two or three months behind. maternal will get fairly -- fully licensed -- moderna will get fully licensed in the next few weeks. pfizer is only approved down to 16 years. they have some work to do to get

it down to 12. for extended to five-year-olds to 11-year-olds at some point. julian: i know parents are eagerly awaiting that. i want to talk about hospitalizations. record number of hospitalizations from covid-19. the common theme, and so many doctors have been preaching this, the large majority of folks are unvaccinated. at some point, is natural immunity going to help? the situation is pretty bad right now. what else can be done at this point? nurses and doctors have to be exhausted. >> it's a situation that didn't need to have happened. natural immunity works. it doesn't work as well as vaccination. we know that. but it does work and it will provide some -- a bit of a fire break, but it's not a definitive solution and it will not last. it will not last well into tnot

future. there is an article from the cdc, published in kentucky, where they looked at risk of second infections after you've been infected once, what's your risk of second infection, and the risk was much lower among people who got vaccinated after they got a first infection. that's the evidence-based for how much better vaccination is than naturally acquired infection, among other things. naturally acquired infection is ok, not as good as vaccine, but it's ok. it's ok for several months. but people who are naturally infected a year ago, march, don't count on that to give you a lot of protection. julian: hopefully, that will be an answer for the next question about those who have the antibodies from previous infection. the doctor saying it gives you some protection, but not as good as actually getting the covid-19 vaccine.

i want to talk about some of the new restrictions that we are beginning to see or at least some governors beginning to say, slow down on the tourism, slow down on the vacationing. speaking of hawaii's governor, asking tourists to stay away from hawaii due to a spike in covid-19 cases. what's your take on vacation in general right now? three months ago, folks were a bit more optimistic about traveling. how do you feel about it now with this spike in the delta variant? >> nobody>> has really made any clear recommendations yet. if you are traveling overseas, you have to do with all sorts of countries' quarantine restrictions and regulations. if you go to new zealand or australia, you will be sitting i9jn a hotel -- in a a a a a a a your own expense for a couple weeks. driving around california is fine.

there's lots of stuff to do in california. and, you know, that's where i would go, i think. try and stay relatively close. and if you do want to go on vacation -- we are now starting up school, so vacation time is -- the last gasp of summer is gasping. julian: it has flown by. i have no clue how september starts next week. i want to bring in marie's question. lots of people were waiting to see what would happen with the fda approval. some people who are unvaccinated said that was what they were waiting to see, for them to get the shot. marie is asking, how does the vaccine interact with other medications people might be taking? >> it doesn't. there are some concerns that certain medications might make the vaccine less effective. so, certain types of immunosuppressive drugs, high dose of steroids, things you treat malignancy, remit a

logical disease with -- rheumatological diseases with. it's that some drugs will block the vaccine's ability to produce immunity. you need to talk to your doctors pretty carefully about that, because there are some timing issues. you can wait and get vaccinated right at the end of the cycle of immunotherapy or something. there's all sorts of nuances to this, and it's hard to generalize, but i would talk to my doctor about it. julian: following up on the advice you provided, diane saying a doctor told her the other day that natural immunity is stronger. why do so many doctors disagree? >> i think that's one doctor disagreeing with me, possibly. they need to read the literature, like i do every day. it's pretty clear. julian: we want to squeeze in one more question before we take some more viewer questions. facebook live.

covid infections in vaccinated people will start happening more as the efficacy wanes over time. do you see an increase in breakthrough cases leading to hospitalizations? >> not really. the breakthrough thing is complicated. you have a population that, 100% has been vaccinated, every case will be vaccinated. there's a variety of factors. 40% of cases will be breakthrough cases if we have 80% of the population vaccinated, for instance. it's just the way it is. so, yeah. but the other thing about the vaccines is they give you a big leg up on severe disease and hospitalization and mortality. while we may have a greater proportion of cases that are breakthrough cases, i don't think, as an absolute number, we will have a greater number of cases that are breakthrough cases. julian: hopefully, just a milder

infection if you are vaccinated and do in fact get one of these so-called breakthrough cases. we have been speaking with dr. george rutherford, ucsf

the shot, obviously not as bad. all right. julian: we are back on air with ucsf eb dummy only just -- ucsf epidemiologist george rutherford. i want to get your take on long-haulers when it comes to covid-19. folks who have been vaccinated, are they exhibiting the same long-hauler symptoms? that's something people have been concerned about, after they get over covid, they still don't feel themselves for so long, the brain fog and other symptoms.

>> aches and pains, joint pains and stuff. we don't know. the answer is, if you get a breakthrough case, what's your risk of the long-hauler syndrome -- we just don't know. i think that the take-home here is that you don't want to get a breakthrough case. how do you not get a breakthrough case? get vaccinated. try and avoid situations in which there might be transmission, which means wearing masks and trying to maintain some social distancing. so, that's kind of -- not totally within your hands to avoid infection postvaccination, but i would encourage you to go the extra yard to avoid being exposed. julian: on the topic of going extra yard and masks, foreign governor -- oregon governor kate brown announcing starting friday, masks will be required at large outdoor events where social distancing is not an option.

regardless of vaccination status, do you agree with a move like this? are you wearing a mask like this outdoors when social distancing isn't feasible? >> i do. i certainly wear one in the grocery store, things like that. when you are walking around and it's crowded, i'd wear a mask. it begs the question, when you look at the bay bridge series over the weekend, the inside shots of the concourse at the oakland alameda coliseum, i would say maybe 1/4, 1/3 of people had masks on. they were asking me on friday what to do. i said, i would certainly wear a mask in that concourse, 40,000 people in the stadium. that strikes me as the better part of valor. there were a number of people who were, but there were also a number of people who were not. julian: should we go as far as mandating that the proper tool or levy that should be pulled at

this point? should be up to common sense and folks taking it upon themselves? >> at the end of the day, it's going to have to be to common sense. the more you regulate this sort of stuff and mandate it, the greater the burden you put on business owners and people who are trying to run these things. short of bringing in the bullpen to enforce the mass mandate, i don't see them doing that. i think it really has to be driven by common sense. julian: want to get your take on the delta variant. are we beginning to see it level out in the bay area, in california, in the u.s.? where are we on this current variant we have been so focused on for the last couple of months? >> we are not seeing anything displacing it, which is good news. there's not delta, bad delta, plus, plus, plus behind it. there have been some minor mutations, but they seem to have the same characteristics as the

delta virus. people asked me about the lambda virus, which is a peruvian strain. it has not gotten out of the eastern part of peru and the amazon. it's a little bit of spread in western south america, but not much. i think the delta variant is out competing it at the margins where they interact. i think the delta variant is something we know. something we can design newer vaccines against. for which our vaccines have pretty good efficacy still. i'm happy to say i think the delta virus is the strain we will have for the next, i hope, several months, because it's the devil we know. julian: exactly. the devil we know and we've been fighting for several months. i want to talk about schools and re-openings. we've been hearing from

frustrated bay area parents who have been receiving the dreaded letters about contact. what's your take on how reopenings schools is going so far? b range. it's unfortunate they are trying to do this during e search of d. this is a consequence of circulating virus in areas where there are low levels of vaccination. the kids are getting infected at home and bring it into the classroom. there's not a lot of evidence for kid to kid transmission, which is good, and not a lot of evidence of kid to teacher transmission. i think some of the school districts have been more open than others to trying to do quarantine in place, where they test the kids who have been exposed, but keep them in the classrooms. i think there are some

compelling data from england that that works. i would hope that that's a direction in which we move so you don't have to do wholesale quarantine of whole classes if there's a single case. julian: we haven't seen a lot of cases of kid to kid or kid to teacher transmission. does that suggest there been outbreaks happening on campus? >> it's very hard to tell. i'm a pediatrician. kid to kid's a technical term. that's a joke. we just haven't seen a lot. we see one case, another case, another case another day. you are sort of hamstringed. the way you prove otherwise, you have to do extensive investigations and look at the

families and stuff. the idea of keeping these exposed kids in school and testing them regularly, not the ones who are infected. they have to go into isolation. the ones who have been exposed, keeping them and testing them -- you pull them out as soonest they turn infectious. i think that's a strategy that will be heavily utilized. julian: we will see how that plays out as we move forward. dr. george rutherford, ucsf epidemiologist, thank you for your time and expertise. >> my pleasure. julian: next up, we will take a closer look at the fda's approval of the pfizer vaccine and what it means for the

julian: welcome back. you are watching "getting answers," live on abc 7 news. we expect to see a domino of

events when it comes to mandates now that pfizer is approved -- the pfizer vaccine is approved. let's bring michael into the conversation. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for inviting me. appreciate it. julian: how does the full approval impact vaccine mandates? so many people have been taking the wait and see approach. the time has come. we now see the fda granting full approval. what you see here? -- what do you see here? >> i think we are all happy they finished some really great studies. over 40,000 people, 100,000 pieces of data to really show us that, yes, this vaccine is incredibly effective and it's very safe. i think, knowing that, put a lot of people's minds at ease, but not only people,

businesses as well, universities, government. we just saw that the government just instituted for active military yesterday, 1.4 million americans will be mandated to take the vaccine as part of their service. i think that this is a great step to show the rest of our country and it will make us a lot safer. julian: we know some early vaccine requirements gave people the ultimatum to get the shot or undergo regular severance -- surveillance testing. a negative test just won't cut it anymore. think? >> i do think that. i think this mandate opens the door for employers to institute a mandate for their workers. it will make it a lot easier. to be fair, before the government had told them yes, they were able to institute the

mandate, but i think employers were still a little nervous. there were quite a bit of lawsuits across the country in states like ohio, kentucky, nash -- national health care systems with employees who objected to getting the vaccine. i think now with the federal full approval by the fda, that's going to remove a lot of the barriers, and you are going to see a lot more employers instituting those mandates. interestingly, there are groups of employers who maybe feel like they don't want to institute -- especially given the shortages of workers in some sectors, they may not be willing to institute a mandatory vaccine for all workers. in those cases, you will probably see surcharges perhaps for employees who choose not to get the vaccine, because employers recognize that they are putting themselves at a

higher cost for health care, for these employees. julian: are you suggesting this would be the same way, some folks might have to pay something if they still smoke for example? >> that's exactly right. just looking at the cost of having an employee who is not vaccinated, we know that exposes them to disease, as well as potential long covid symptoms. absolutely. it's like having an employee who smokes cigarettes. employers don't say that -- don't refuse employees who smoke cigarettes, but they might have a surcharge, for example. they might institute testing as well. julian: about a minute left. we are beginning to see barry -- bay area corporations mandate vaccinations for their employees. we know our bipoc communities

are still lacking in vaccination rates. do you think there will be an increase in vaccinations and vulnerable populations now that a shot is tied to whether people can keep a paycheck coming or not? >> we know from behavior change research that one of the main reasons people get vaccines is because of social factors. like a lot of other communities, the bipoc community is impacted by their community. when they see family members, coworkers getting the vaccine, that will increase the vaccine uptake rates. that's happened the last couple of days. the african-american community in the last couple days has had the highest rate of increase. julian: that's exactly what we need to see, seeing more of

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for joining us for this interactive show, "getting answers." i'm julian glover. answering questions when it comes to covid-19. tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. president biden just moments ago on the emergency evacuations in? and what about the afghans who helped the u.s.? and tonight, president biden on his concerns over the potential terror threat on the groung in afghanistan the longer the u.s. is there. tonight, the pace of evacuations increasing dramatically. ian pannell reporting from kabul. martha raddatz live in washington with late reporting. can this deadline be met? also tonight, news on the

pandemic. the u.s. now reporting more than