>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. >> you are watching getting answers. we asked experts your questions every day at three to get answers in real time. today we will talk to fabienne nunez to understand why governor newsom is lagging in locking down the all-important with de novo just one week before the recall election. also, airlines slashing prices for fall travel. we ask johnny jet how you can capitalize on deals and trends. first,cs nurs hd a rtws demanding changes from the hospital.

joining us is maureen dugan, a registered nurse at ucsf. she has been with ucsf for more than 30 years. thank you for joining us today. why are the nurses angry? what has been happening that isn't working for nurses that you are calling attention to? i know how much stress you have been under. you have been doing heroic work taking care of patients during the pandemic, but what is happening now that is simply unworkable to mark maureen: critically and chronically understaffed units on a daily basis. we have met with ucsf management many times. they say they are hiring nurses, but it is not enough to cover the nurses out with workplace injuries, medical leave, quarantines. we are desperate at this point. they tell us two different stories and we are desperate.

we are reaching out to the media and the community to say, we are here for you, we do the best we can, but we are very stressed and shortstaffed. we are calling on ucsf scale back the nonemergent surgeries and procedures, which they have been unwilling to do. they have only added more. this is in light of knowing we do not have enough nurses and support staff to safely care for our patients. ama: you mentioned -- kristen: you mentioned quarantines. nurses being sick is one factor calling for more hiring. is it also due to more patients? at a lot of times there were a lot of patients coming in with covid. in san francisco it is more under control, but is not a factor? maureen: we have seen an increase in patients at ucsf. the emergency room is stressed

with more patients than they can handle. it is also that ucsf is continuing full and expanded schedules of nonemergent surgeries and procedures. kristen: right. that is something i would love to have the chance to ask the hospital about. i do know from reporting the last year and a half that a lot of procedures have been delayed and postponed and people at some point need to get it done. due to the shortage in staffing, have lives been threatened or endangered? can you give us something you have seen in which this dire need for nurses really cut into patient care and safety? >> it's every day. there have been incidents on my unit. i take care of adults after major of domino surgery primarily -- major abdominal surgery primarily. we have had multiple incidents at one time.

three patients were having life-threatening incidents. again, the icu has been critically understaffed. nurses have more patients assigned to them than they would normally. it is not to our standard of care. they have not given us enough staff that we can take meal and rest breaks, so we are absolutely exhausted and you cannot keep doing that day after day. they have offered extra shift differential if we work overtime, which is helpful, but not a solution. this is 19 months we have been under extreme duress and you cannot keep expecting people to work overtime. it is not safe. kristen: how many people does the hospital need to hire, do you think? maureen: right now i can't give a number, but not only adult icu last made during

nurses' week, they cut nurses from the grid, the amount of nurses they get every day. multiple units are short nurses every shift. kristen: let me ask you also about this. one of your complaints has been employees are not being allowed to work from home. explain how that would work in terms of doing patient care from home. maureen: that's a different area. that's the clinic. there are some registered nurses who work in areas that can be done from home, some of the clinic work. they have been doing that very successfully. i think that is less of an issue right now. they were wanting to bring people back physically, but now they are extending the ability to work from home through october or even next year. i am forgetting the exact date. that is an issue of our staff

overall being overworked, but for the inpatient unit where i am, we are lacking support staff and nurses to a very dangerous level. kristen: are a lot of nurses quitting in either frustration or stress? are you seeing colleagues leaving the profession? maureen: in in in in in in in in frustrated with the cuts and have moved to other areas, maybe not leaving the profession, but moving to outpatient areas. you are losing valuable experience. it is very demoralizing and it is harder to recruit. we would like to see more effort in retaining staff as well as hiring the staff we need. kristen: are the only challenges coming from the hospital side, or also coming from patients?

maureen: patients -- i don't really understand what you mean by that. kristen: some stress factors that have been on the nurses, is some of that coming from patients? we have heard from patients, maybe not necessarily at ucsf, but across the country, talking about how they face challenges dealing with patients as well. flight attendants deal with that when it comes to the public. most people are great, but it was like there is an additional challenge interacting face-to-face these days. maureen: i personally feel that is a challenge we face on a daily basis, patients can be confused or have critical incidences. it is the challenge of caring for them in general. i don't feel like there is more stress from the patient's. the stress is we are unable to meet their needs due to lacking staff.

we are facing the moral injury and burnout and exhaustion. we are not rubber bands. you can't keep stretching and stretching us. there needs to be more proactive and more safe decisions made about how many patients we can care for. some of these procedures and surgeries will need to be delayed if we don't have staff. they know we don't have staff and they are continuing to run the or and procedural units. kristen: why do you think that is? maureen: profit. they are putting profit above patient safe, absolutely. every day i face something they are trying to cut. every day we are asked to do more with less. we are being blamed for the cost of doing business, essentially. kristen: what is your plan if you don't get what you are looking for? will you consider going on strike or take some other job action? maureen: we are limited.

our contract in effect, we are not able to strike. we will continue to voice our concerns and demand safe staffing. pitstops with us. we are patient advocates. we have to protect patient safety. that's what the hospital liens on, that's what they know we are going to do. we are not going to show up and say, i'm not going to do that. we are there to protect the patients and get them recovered and healed. that often costs us personally. kristen: maureen dugan, thank you for your time. you are a nurse at ucsf. we tried to reach out to ucsf officials for comments. we have not heard back. we hope to continue this conversation with both of you. when we come back, with the recall just one week away, the attention is turning to the largest voting ethnic group in

i may not be as pretty. i'm not a cable tv personality or an entertainer like larry. i'm the businessman, the only cpa running for gov ernor. california is a mismanaged mess. taxes, cost of living, water, wildfires, homelessness. these aren't political issues; they're readily fixable management issues. career politicians? celebrities? i've solved problems all my life.

let's fix this great state!

kristen: latinos are the single largest ethnic group in california and make up 30% of registered voters. traditionally they are in the democratic tent, but governor newsom is making an all-out effort to engage this voting bloc. he spoke today and spent several minutes talking about the policies he has put in place to help the latino community. >> i could go on another five to 10 minutes. that gives you a sense of our commitment, our resolve. not rhetoric, actual policy, areas of specific support to a broad swath within the

community. i am very proud of the response we are receiving from the latino community and i am encouraged by the early numbers and am very confident people understand what's on the others of this recall. kristen: a new poll by a sacramento-based research group suggests latinos are almost evenly split on governor newsom's recall. what is going on? a former state assembly speaker joins us. thank you, mr. nunez. >> good to be with you. kristen: i have been looking at some polls that i imagine are worrisome for the newsom camp. in july, a survey showed 40% of latinos were inclined recall the governor. is governor newsom showing weakness with latinos? >> really he isn't. part of the problem is when you

get into the polling that has happened during a special election, the people you poll 10 to be people that are likely voters that will vote in every single election. if you do that, you end up cutting a huge percentage of young voters. latinos make up the youngest population of voters. in california, you have about 25% of the voter base is latino and steep percent of those are young people under the age of 23, between 18 and 23. what that says is a lot of young people don't end up in polls. i think governor newsom enjoys solid support from the latino community. it just so happens that the polls we are looking at are not capturing that support. on election day, you will see the poll that matters the most, between now and the last day we

have to vote because we are voting by mail. kristen: are you seeing signs that even though they may be left out of polls, that they are very energized in engaging with the campaign and plan to send in ballots. that is the only thing that counts, whether they turn and the ballots. according to the same poll, 17% of latinos have sent in ballots compared to 30% of whites. what do you think about that? mr. nunez: it is one of the things for all of us that have been involved in politics. i have been doing this since i was 19, 20 years old. every time we get into an election cycle, folks start paying attention two weeks before the election. given that this is a different election, it makes it more difficult because people have to vote by mail. we just came off a presidential election where people were enthusiastic and voted in high

numbers. latinos got up to 78% of turnout in california. i think that's very solid. i trust those numbers are going to be going up the next four or five days. in l.a. county, you have a higher number of voters that have turned out. i think those numbers are going to continue to rise. i think you will see the latino turnout being above 40%. i think the overall turnout will be close to 50% but latinos in general will turn out 40%, which will spell well for governor newsom because i think he is going to have about 60% support among those who turnout. kristen: what does he need to be talking about in the next week? how can he convince the voting bloc that he has been working for them? mr. nunez: the interesting thing about the question that came up at the press conference with the governor today about what he has done latinos, the level of

support this governor has dedicated to the latino committee is unprecedented, if you look at what he has done not only providing assistance to people who needed it the most during the most difficult year and a half we had over covid, providing financial support, but also the level of responsibility in closing down schools when it was necessary. he was the first governor in the country that took decisive action on covid. we have seen his support on immigration has been incredible. the support he has extended to providing health insurance to the uninsured, in particular to undocumented working immigrants that are in this state. no other governor has done it. it kicks in in january 2022. bassitt -- that is another example of his commitment of making sure we are not only

providing health care access, but bridging the gap between the haves and have-nots by looking for ways to make people count in their ability to provide for their families. that is something this governor has been very committed to. because of covid, people are upset and looking for someone to blame. the good news is he has been able to get the monkey off his back. if you look at the trump republicans on the ballot, it's clear none of these people fit the model of what california looks like. the values of california are not reflected by any of those people , but they clearly are reflected by governor newsom. i think we should all be very proud of the work he has done. kristen: you talked about the national picture, perhaps not the case in california, but nationally in the last presidential election, surprising to some, president trump did well among latinos. the diaspora is huge, a lot of

ethnic backgrounds and different needs and concerns. how concerned are you that governor newsom needs to make a strong showing, not just for now, but for next year when we also have the midterm elections? mr. nunez: great question. if you look at the presidential race, latinos are not a monolithic population. we see this when you look at states like florida and southern texas, where latinos tended to vote in much higher numbers for the then-republican president donald trump. in california that he knows are also very diverse. only 56% of latino voters are registered democrat. 38% are registered independent and another percentage is republican. as a group, you will see latinos largely will support the democratic candidate. even the independent latino voters tend to vote on the democratic side.

the thing the governor does, will need to do moving forward, i think he will be successful in this recall election. we need to vote, make sure we submit our ballot. that's the most important thing. beyond that, once he keeps his job, i think he needs to spend more time talking about some of the things he has done. when you look at the homeless issue, the most successful thing that has been done around the country is this thing he started where motels and hotels that were not being used, he rented hotels to provide housing to homeless populations up and down the state and provide services people need so that people can have a home. he did that very quickly during a difficult time that also helped some business people. these kinds of innovative actions are the types of things the governor will need to continue to do to show he definitely has the right person

for people to have voted for. that's one example of many other things that he needs to do. overall he needs to be more present on the things he is doing. he needs to be campaigning up and down the state even when not in an election. ama: fabian nunez, former democratic state assembly speaker, now a partner at public affairs. thanks so much for your insight. next, we will get into traveling, specifically flying. 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.

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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? at best as we continue to deal with the delta variant and this pandemic, but people are doing it. joining us to talk about the latest, johnny jet. good to see you. i heard travel data company hopper is forecasting low airfares, domestic and international, this fall. tell us how low and why? johnny: two weeks ago to fly los

angeles to new york was $500-something per trip. right now you can go for under $250. today, chicago to los angeles, $71 round-trip for next weekend. these are ridiculously low prices. kristen: why is this happening? is it business travelers are not coming back in the fall and they have seats to sell? johnny: three things. it is that, the business travelers are not there. leisure travelers are coming back home because their kids are in school. the last is people are worried about the delta variant. it is a mix of all three and it is not great for the airlines, though the numbers this week were pretty good. kristen: let's talk about the delta variant and vaccine proof.

has anything changed? netherlands imposed a 10 day quarantine for americans. give us a sense of where we can go without restrictions and who is asking for what. johnny: the eu last week dropped a bombshell that everyone knew was coming, that they were going to close up the eu, or recommend it. there is 27 nations in the eu, so they don't cap ago verbatim by what they are saying. for italy, they are saying you have to be either vaccinated or have a negative test and even vaccinated travelers have to have a negative test. netherlands are saying you have to quarantine. sweden is like, sorry, you can't come in. norway is saying no americans right now. it is up to each country. spain, you can go in. you have to keep checking no matter where you are going

because it is changing every day. kristen: don't assume that just because one european country says this, the others will say the same. given the restrictions, a lot of people are looking to hawaii, which is the mystic. you have the governor saying we are running out of icu beds, please don't, right now. tell us about hawaii. johnny: when the governor tells you it is not the time to come, it is not the time to come. it is like asking the waiter if you should have the filet mignon and he is like, i don't recommend it. you are not going to have the hawaiian experience. i don't think the locals want you there. a big reason why is because hospitals are full and everyone is worried about having their own health care. they are not blaming it on tourists because a lot of locals were congregating and having big parties. they put some measures in place, i think 50% for restaurants. to get reservations is difficult, car rentals are expensive. it's not a good time.

they are asking fixed weeks and they will see how it goes. i was supposed to go to a conference next month and was going to say i couldn't go, but the conference canceled. kristen: but the airfares are low? johnny: $99 each day -- each way. southwest came out with a sale the day after the governor said that. what are you thinking about? they are asking you not to come and you are putting a carrot in front of their nose. kristen: let's continue this conversation on his book

joining us on this interactive show, getting answers. we will be here every weekday at

3:00 on air and on livestream, answering your questions. world news tonight is coming up tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. the growing concern over children and covid. child covid cases here in the u.s., the largest increase since this pandemic began. more than 252,000 new cases in just the last week. where they're seeing the worst of this, and the concern over the new variant. could it be resistant to the vaccines. and where it has been detected in the u.s.? tonight, dr. anthony fauci and the stadiums packed with fans, saying i don't think it's smart. and what the doctor is now saying about boosters, that third shot. how soon before that becomes a reality? marcus moore from texas tonight. in new york and new jersey tonight, president biden touring the disaster zone. the storms from the remnants of hurricane ida slamming into that front. dozens killed in the