>> building a better -- >> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. kristen: i'm kristen sze. you are watching getting answers. we're asking experts your questions every day at 3:00. there is a lot to cover this friday and break down it comes to covid-19. of course, we'll begin with governor gavin newsom's biggest announcement, basically mandating vaccines for eligible students ages 12-17 once it is fully authorized, and younger kids, as well. he actually said two deadlines, january 1 or july 1, and it just depends on when the vaccine is fully authorized. joining us to talk more about this is special correspondent

dr. patel and deputy superintendent, gentle light.... thank you for joining us today. >> thank you. kristen: california, the first state to issue such a mandate, mandatory vaccine for school students. you both support the decision? dr. patel? >> i do support it. i do support this decision and i support the fact that it is outlined by governor newsom. it should put a lot of people at ease. i don't want to overstep, but covid-19 is not going anywhere. we just need to find a safe path to move forward so we can get our freedom back and reopen. kristen: and from the school district effective, do you support it? >> we do support it 100%, and as dr. patel said, we need to learn how to be in person for our learning, forever students.

and -- for our students. in the safest way is to have high vaccination rates in our community. we're fortunate in san francisco because we know over 90% of youth between ages 12-17 in this city have been vaccinated, so we just want to celebrate our young people for leading the way, and we're really excited to get to 100%, and also for our five to 12-year-olds to become eligible. kristen: let's talk about eligibility. dr. patel, this is for k-12. can you talk about the difference between k-six and 7-12? >> with respect to the mandate? yeah, so basically it's applying to any mandate with f -- vaccine with fda approval. it only applies to kids who are 16 and above, but it will be one semester after approval for other age groups, so potentially 12 to 15-year-olds could be early 2022, with the younger age group getting the mandate by the second semester next year,

possibly summer 2022. i'm sure there will be better timeline estimates, but i said this earlier. this is all based on fda approval. this is based on all the safety and efficacy data coming out and people looking at these vaccines and saying these are great for our kids. that is a really reassuring thing for parents, and anyone paying attention to hear. kristen: this applies to both public and private schools, right? and also, no personal belief exemptions allowed, right? >> no, and this is tricky here. this applies to both public and private schools. and when we talk about mandated vaccines, there's a host of vaccines already mandated vaccines for kids. there's several of them. mmr, hepatitis b, tetanus, all these shots. and sp2 77 that was passed,

covid-19 is mandated by legislation, not regulation, so there has to be an exemption, medical and personal, religious following under personal. if legislation was introduced, those could be lifted. we will have to wait and see what happens. >> and i do want to add, for the school systems, we are routinely checking vaccinations for those that are already required. a lot of times, it's in specific grade levels and transitional years, such as entering into kindergarten into the school system. this will be a massive undertaking to verify vaccination status of all students in all grades, five through 18 years old. so, this is going to require us to develop some new systems, which covid has continued to push us to do. kristen: are you ready to do that? and what do you think it all entails? because i do know some colleges,

for example, require that you just upload your vaccination card. what do you think you're looking at? >> so, san francisco has a very diverse student population that we serve. we have a lot of non-english learners, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and what that means is finding a system for families to submit that information on behalf of their students is one that has to be mindful of all of the accessibility needs of our families. so we need to make sure that it's an accessible process, both in terms of technology, but also language access, and also do a lot to really help make sure that we have easy access to getting the vaccines, as well. so, i would say we had an amazing partnership in san francisco with the department of public health. we had a robust vaccination program we made available at our school sites, as well as throughout the community. so i'm confident we can do it,

but will it take a big lift on the part of just all of the long underfunded systems that we have in public education? absolutely. kristen: can i just ask you, what if a student refuses? as long as it's by regulation, as dr. patel pointed out, whether someone refuses or they just get an exemption, what is the option for them to get educated? could they still come into the school or would they have to go remote? >> we'd be following the same -- luckily, we do have a path that's already been paved in terms of what's possible for families in terms of vaccinations of other types, so we would follow similar kind of path in terms of, you know, the opportunities families would have to be eligible for exemptions are not. and as dr. patel said, it really depends also on what happens at the state legislature level. kristen: dr. patel, san francisco unified has a pretty

high vaccination rate among the students who are eligible, just like the rest of san francisco. but when we look at the numbers overall and california, one shot vaccination rate of 12-17-year-olds is only 63%, versus 84% for all californians. why is there an age gap there? why is that age group lapping -- liking? -- lagging? our parents uncomfortable with it? what do you think it is? >> i think it's all of the above. i think because it's a new vaccine, there's a lot of politicizing, a lot of misinformation. parents have questions, and i applaud parents for having questions. that is your job to get empowered and learn everything you can. but there's a lot of different sources. so you take everything about the vaccines to be safe, all that stuff, but also add the false narrative that kids are somehow immune to covid. i've heard a lot of parents say, does my kid even need the vaccine?

and we have to talk about yes, kids, fortunately, have a liberal rate of -- lower rate of winding up in the hospital, but they still do. they can also still transmit the virus. but also kids can have covid, as well. i personally have seen kids in clinics at hospital who tested positive and wound up having these long, insidious symptoms months later. and like we mentioned at the top of the show, covid-19, sars-cov-2, isn't going anywhere, so i think all this information's going out there, parents have a little bit of trepidation right now with quickly accepting this vaccine. luckily we can overcome that as we get more information out there and encourage more dialogue. kristen: a few weeks ago, we got the really great headline that you haven't had the need to quarantine or cancel classes, that the case rates were very low and not really any evidence

of transmission within the schools. give us a new update on how things are looking now. >> so, in san francisco as a whole, the department of public health has determined that there have been six outbreaks in all schools across the city. that includes private, as well as public san francisco unified schools. so it's not unique to san francisco unified. we have had less than five outbreaks, and our overall transmission rate is lower than it is in the community. and what our public health officials and experts tell us is that it shows you that you can be in person, learning safely, and that the strategies that we're using to keep students and staff safe are working. so, we have universal masking. we have great ventilation standards in place at all of our schools. and we are asking everyone to do health screening before they come to school, and also making sure that we have a robust

testing availability when anybody is in close contact, and we're doing mandatory quarantining. has it meant we haven't had to send kids home? no, we certainly had a number of students who had to quarantine since the beginning of the school year, but it's part of how we're keeping everybody safe . fortunately, none of the cases have resulted in serious illness. kristen: you guys have had a lot of mitigation measures, including masking at the schools. do you see those things going away once the vaccine mandate kicks in and all your kids are vaccinated? >> you know, we would follow what the public experts tell us. but what we know now is that even when you're vaccinated, it is safest to use masking because we know that even vaccinated people can occasionally get covid, though it's rare, and when they do get it, something that they had much less severe symptoms and mild symptoms. but because that's possible, we

will continue to follow public health guidelines. but i anticipate masking is here to stay for a while. kristen: thank you so much. dr. patel, don't go away. you are going to stick around the whole show to a 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

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♪ hello, colonial penn? kristen: we are back with special correspondent dr. patel, so much going on, including governor newsom announcing schoolchildren will be required to get the vaccine, and of course, that's all dependent on getting full fda approval, so the schedule is set up, possibly january, possibly july. dr. patel, you've got two truths and a lie set up for us to learn more about the latest headline,

so let's do it. >> rock 'n' roll. users, you're clutch here. tell me which of these is not true. is it a, kids in california are already to have 10 vaccines for child care and k-12 schools? or is it b, a third of parents will vaccinate their children as soon as possible? and this is down from a prior survey in july. or is it c, according to early data, a new antiviral pill reduces the risk of hospitalization or death about 50%? which one is not true? kristen: those of you on facebook, feel free to help us out here and test your knowledge. i think a is true. i don't know if it's 10 vaccines, but i do know there's a whole host of childhood vaccines that you have to get that people don't object to. and i'm going to rule out c as also the truth because that is

the big news headline today, that the new antiviral pill does cut the series outcome by about 50%. so, i will say b is the light, looking for confirmation from our viewers. most people are saying b. so, b is the lie, one third of parents ages five to 11 will vaccinate their kids asap, down from a prior survey. so, what do you say? >> i guess it's feel good friday because everyone is right. so b is the light. that number -- the lie. that number is up. 30% still is not great. we have work to do, but it is an improvement. a lot of parents are sitting on the fence, and hopefully they will have more gray data. the reason why we keep bringing up a is because people all over the country have been protesting vaccine mandates. if you're protesting because of fear of the vaccine, that's one issue. people are protesting because of medical freedom. what about my right, my choice?

immigrants coming into this country need 14 vaccines to come here. there's no protest about that. in california, measles, mumps, rubella, leo, tetanus, that's 10. and that's to keep these diseases away from schools, keep kids safe, and i know you know about c because you brought that up to me already, big news about antiviral pills. kristen: one of the big news stories. can i give a shout out to our viewers, daniel, who not only knew the answer was b, but he also knew the number is actually going up but not down in terms of parents who would get their kids vaccinated? so, good job, daniel. >> you're an all-star. kristen: no price, sorry, but we applied you. let's talk about the antiviral. what is antiviral? how does it work in the body? >> so basically, different class of medication right now. antivirals directly affecting a

virus's ability to get into a cell and replicate. you're not necessarily boosting your immune system, which is what something like a vaccine, like directly mixing with the body. this specific antiviral, made by a couple other companies -- i think i'm saying that right. essentially what it's doing is it's going to interfere with the virus's ability to replicate, make more of itself, when it affects you, and this trial had pretty incredible results for what they were looking at, which is why it was stopped early. the difference of 14.7%, looking at patients who are hospitalized or dying versus those who refine, that's 14% in the group who had the placebo, did not take antiviral, and only 7% were hospitalized. some people might say that, hey, that's not a huge number, but if you look at this at a worldwide scale, and look at people who

are high-risk -- we don't know if they've been vaccinated -- higher risk and contracted covid, that could not only keep people out of the hospital, but it's going to decrease the burden on our health care system, globally. kristen: there's some who wonder if this might be a double-edged sword in that great, this could be helpful, prevent a lot of deaths. but at the same time, could it keep some people from getting vaccinated, thinking oh, why do i need the vaccine when if i do get it, there's something to keep me from getting very sick? >> i am one of those people, ok? because we have now seen multiple people come out, high-profile people come out, like joe rogan, test positive and test all these medications, but not talk about prevention, masks, the greater part of the year, and talk about the psychology is fascinating for people who have their own philosophical reason for not wanting to take the vaccine but

are ok with taking all these other medications, which doesn't work against covid, or which is iv and costs a lot of money, or remdesivir, getting steroids, but not actually preventing it. any time there's a new pill or treatment out there, and i think it's important for people to understand that this antiviral is not a magic pill. this is just another important tool that we're going to use to keep high-risk people out of the hospital. kristen: and the vaccine, too. i'ts not 100%, but it's a very effective tool, and it's a more effective tool than an antiviral such as the one announced today. >> it's the most effective way we can do this. it prevents it so you're not going to catch covid. you're going to prevent getting some to medic covid-19, and also for anyone out there people pushing the vaccine are all about money, all these other treatments cost more.

their costs the government more than the vaccine does. and going to see the doctor and getting the medication also costs money. kristen: and when you say costs the government more, eventually it costs us, the american taxpayers, more. people forget that. we're taking a short break on the air. wo

you got one more round of two truths for us. >> i do. let's make this one more broad. which one of these is not true? is it a, only 20 countries and africa have met world health organization's 10% fully backdated? sorry about the grammar. or is it b, one in three covid-19 survivors experience longer symptoms? or is it c, leaked data revealed a group of doctors has made millions off of unproven covid-19 treatments?

which one of those is not true? kristen: let's leave this up a little bit longer for the folks on facebook five are considering which one of these is not true. because i think i'll need a little bit of help here. ok, ci is true. some doctors have made millions of dollars. and i think b is also true, although it could be experiencing symptoms. but i think i want to say fewer than 20 countries have met the who goal of 10% fully vaccinated. i'll go with a, and let me see what viewers are saying here. most are going with a, so that's increasing my confidence in my answer. a. >> i'm impressed. i even tried to be tricky here. maybe i need to make this even harder for our audience.

a is not true. it's only 15. the entire continent has 54 countries. that's pitiful. 10%, we can't vaccinate that much of the population? and this is a worldwide pandemic, and the countries that have met the airmen are those that are higher income countries. something the world needs to pay attention to. b we have been talking about for a very long time. symptoms need to be more of a general talking point because we're not only trying to prevent hospitalizations and death, but improved quality of life. and c just drives me insane because one group is the america's frontline providers. they are spreading conspiracy theories, downplaying masks, who have now gone on to make millions of dollars from treatments, the same doctors who said the pandemic wasn't a big deal are making millions treating people from it. so, riddle me that.

kristen: riddle indeed. i want to get to some viewer questions. can we have more information on the r1 variant? what do we know? >> we don't know a lot but we know it is some early lab analysis, they show the potential that it might be less susceptible to our current vaccination. it sounds scary and we need more data, but there's only been it didn't california. in the bay area and also given that the delta variant is more contagious, it is basically out competing the r1 variant and yes, the delta variant is more contagious but the delta variant is susceptible to our shots. right now, our variant is something that is on the radar but it is not the biggest concern. kristen: randy wants to know, are the current vaccines as effective against the new variants as the original covid? >> data suggests that it is

completely effective and even if you look at the real-world data because some -- even if you look right now, the amount of people forgetting hospitalized or sick is overwhelming in the unvaccinated population. big debate is are these infections happening in people who are vaccinated. our antibody levels going down or because the delta variant has something about it? if you are getting pummeled a lot more from the delta variant, more of it is going to breakthrough. it's not necessarily that it's able to avoid vaccines. sorry for the long answer. kristen: don't be sorry. alex has a question for how long they will testing the vaccine for children but what i want to know about children, i know some people have been involved in the trials for a while and many cases of myocarditis amongst the five to 11-year-olds that have

been in the trials, very few cases, of course. >> i have not seen any reported and i just want to remind everyone at air that is it it's of myocarditis is much higher from covid-19 than it is from the actual vaccine by magnitudes more. it's just the one case made major headlines. don't get that type of traction. kristen: thank you so much. we'll take a short b

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kristen: thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show, getting answers. the big news today,

private schools in california following full authorization of the vaccine. much more on this at 4:00 today. we'll be here every weekday at re-:00 to answer your question tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. president biden on the hill a short time ago. what he said behind closed doors. amid this showdown among democrats on the president as two key bills. one on traditional infrastructure. the other bill expanding health care, child care, education, and fighting climate change. what we have just learned tonight. what the president floated in that room. rachel scott live on the hill. also tonight, the coronavirus and the major headline this evening. what could be a new covid pill. merck saying they're trials involving a pill were so encouraging they've stopped trials early. they will ask for emergency use authorization. they say the pill cut risk of severe covid and death in half. dr. jha standing by with