building a better bay area moving forward finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. hi there. i'm kristen z. watching getting answers live on abc 7 hulu live and wherever you stream we ask experts your questions every day at three to get answers for you in real time today. we'll talk to someone who works as a firearm safety specialist on movie sets and we'll get her insight and what might have caused the alec baldwin prop gun shooting death. also a ucsf doctor is behind a new study finding several, california teen was developed severe psychiatric symptoms after getting covid-19. what are the implications but first a big decision that just happened an fda advisory panel has voted to support authorizing pfizer's covid-19 vaccine for millions of children ages 5 to

11. it was overwhelming support 17 voted. yes one abstained joining us now to talk about that and answer your covid-19 questions ucsf infectious disease specialist, dr. monica gandhi, dr. grande great to have you. thank you. all right. so the fda panel has voted. yes in terms of the emergency use authorization for 5 to 11 year olds for the fisa vaccine. so what happens now? so next step is that this willll go to the cdc acip committee, which is on november 2nd and 3rd. so that's two days after halloween next tuesday and wednesday and then be available as soon as the end of that week because then after they approve it then the cc director signs off and it has already said he's gonna make it available. i think it's gonna be in pediatricians offices. first of all, because that is really the place where you want to discuss between parents and pediatrician getting the vaccine. is that where you advise parents to go is to go talk to their pediatrician first and then do

it as opposed to you know, how we grow-ups are used to just going to the drugstore. you know, the reason thatt president biden is probably and the white house has put out this plan for pediatrician's offices at first is that a third of parents are saying absolutely do it by a kaiser survey. third of parents are saying not right now and a third on the fence and it really is around that discussion about being on the fence. it ■was a very nuanceddiscussion today. there was english about it. like i wish you know that we could have had the alpha and not the delta and so we didn't have so much covid, but we have a lot of covid maybe in june we would have had a different decision but delta came and there's so much widespread covid. this is the right thing to do because we saw more infections among children, unfortunately some hospitalizations obviously and rare deaths with children over the summer. yeah, and you mentioned the polls that i was also looking at right with at least a third saying i'm going to wait and see

and then perhaps according to a third saying no way. no how for the folks who say they want to wait and see wait for what i'm not asking as a rhetorical question. i'm really wondering time may yield in terms of answers or reassurances that aren't maybe available to them now. you know, this was really discussed today in the meeting that it was a study of 2,268 children of five to 11 year olds. that means half got the vaccine happened. that is not a lot of children, but absolutely it seems safe, but there is a rare risk of myocarditis in which is hard inflammation in 12 to 17 year olds with the higher dose of the vaccine 30 micrograms. and so even the committee said today, we please know that we as the fda will be following children out. make sure they don't get myocarditis and they're gonna be starting. hey, i want to wait and just make sure that still stays safe stay safe, and then i'll do it then real quickly the myocarditis even in the 12 to 17 year olds. how many incidents is were

there? like give us a sense of one in how many? so it was still rare, but it was about one in 10,000 and what that means is that it's it's rarer than we think you know, it would be if you get covid in your child and you get myocarditis or misc syndrome different syndromes. um, the one thing that they did say is they're going to follow out these kids and just make sure they're fine because they're mostly mild but still and children are feeling it. so so it's still rare and this is so much smaller of a dose and i think i keep on thinking about that and trying to tell parents about that 10 micrograms as opposed to 30, which is the dose that we gave 12 to 17 of 12 to 15 rolls. that's really a lot less right interesting though if you had someone who was a 11 year old and perhaps they weigh as much as most 12 year olds or perhaps even more so is there any indication that they may go back and get another booster or like a second dose, you know or bigger dose?

later to really great question. it's such a good question. should we do like 10 and 30 for yeah kind of on the 11 year old. i will say that children have very active immune systems. they actually mature with their immunity like two to three months and then they are very active. and so the reason they decrease the dose for five to 11 year olds is they didn't want that over exuberant immune response. um, and i have an 11 year old. i'll just say personally on the air and he is just about to turn 12, but i'm still gonna give him the 10 in 10 because he's a good immune system. okay, that's great to hear lauren has a question. which kind of is related to my question. she's asking why are they pushing this on kids the covid survival rate for them shows? it is absolutely not needed. i did want to ask you about that risk, you know benefit analysis when you're looking at the survival rate of that age group versus you know, what else they might get if they got covid even if they survived it. your your color is exactly right

that children are much much less risk for severe disease. the way i think of it is best if we had managed to get through this without delta and we were between alpha and delta like then and the cases were so low. they wouldn't even have been exposed to it what we saw during delta. is that the the hospitalizations and were rare because they do it but i was thinking that it is the eighth leading cause of covident children over the summer. so i'm sorry the 8th leading cause of death in children over the summer and accidents cancer if you had a vaccine that could just take that away for you, you know, no risk of anything else happening to your child and it's safe then you give that child that vaccine. i think that was the part right where a lot of people are wondering is it safe because there is a lot of information out there that you know, people think oh, it's not safe. what can you say to that group to make them feel more comfortable feeling that this is safe. i totally understand this

because there is this rare, you know, 12 to 15 year old 17 year old democrats. so this is what i would say, it's much lower of a dose. i putting out very strongly in public messaging but i think we should delay the duration between the doses and i'll tell you why number one. there's immunologic and clinical effect of nervous research that it's better to have it six to eight weeks apart second. myocarditis among young boys after the second dose was higher and israel. more times higher than it what which gave three weeks between doses and canada which gave eight weeks between doses. it was about four times higher in israel. so to me spacing out that that duration. i've already told my pediatrician's office. yeah and it is is makes me feel even safer about it. and that's why i'm gonna to 11 year old i was gonna say but that is not the official recommendation, right? the official recommendation is to stick with the three, but you as the parent can talk it over with your doctor and elect to go back a little bit later for the second shot. not only can you talk it over with your doctor? but the cdc says fully

vaccinated his 42 days, which is essentially six weeks and the way i did with my older son because i did this is i just went back to the pharmacy in seven weeks or like whatever so i'm just i think discussed that with your pediatrician, but i think a lot of pediatricians are over to this. okay. good to know. i i went about five weeks in between my pfizer shots just because i miss my first one and then i had to get reschedule so good. yay lucky thing it's better. it's more effective. okay, so let's be clear today is approval for the five to 11 year olds by this fda pan. is emergency use authorization not the full authorization full approval. so does that mean the california state mandate for vaccines for school entry cannot be implemented yet? yes, they that is correct a mandate, you know, i think if we think back about what newsome said governor newsom said he said it'll be mandated once it's fully approved. you really can't mandate a vaccine for any population until it's fully approved. you can say you'd like to but

but the reason to wait for approval before actually allowing school entry, which will be fully approved. if all goes well by the next school year is because once something is given the final stamp of approval by the f a believe me at safe. and the reason i say that is the fda is always leaning on the side of safety. even your discussion today was very nuanced. they are very concerned about safety and they will ensure it's safe before they put the final approval on it from eua. all right. hey, i'm gonna ask you to do something very difficult try to forecast the the future at least the near future. okay. now that the cases are going back down in all 50 states. leave and the delta search appears to have subsided. do you think that we may get another way this winter or do you think we are now winding down looking good and perhaps moving from pandemic to endemic? i really do think it's the latter and i know people will all say oh, she said that between alpha and delta, but i was wrong. i mean that wasn't totally wrong that it delta, you know, we got

protected in the state of california because we had higher rates vaccination. but the reason i'm just gonna do the quickest reason to tell you we had a 62% sour prevalence rate by the which means antibodies in the population by the lowest possible estimate before delta 62% we have had 38 million additional vaccines then that brings us up. 75% are prevalence we've had unfortunately at least 30 million new infections, probably more but with 10 million official and it's usually 3 to 20 times less. so we've had at least 35 more more million new infections. i it all up our everyone's right now is 87% in the population. that's high. that means a lot of been exposed or have had the i don't think delta plus or anything can break through that high to cause a high surge. dr. monica gandhi always great talking to you and mad respect for you for being able to say i was wrong who isn't at some point as this thing has been so unpredictable and there's so many factors including, you know

some that we can control others not but i so appreciate it. thank you so much for that insight today. yeah, i talk to you coming up next ucsf doctor behind a study finding several california teenagers develop severe. teenagers develop severe. patrick's symptoms after getting ♪ ♪ comprehensive dental coverage. so you can enjoy movie night to the fullest. one of many cost-saving medicare advantage benefits from scan health plan for 2022. call today, or ask your agent about scan health plan.

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i saw you toss the kites on high... improved vision coverage. so you can focus on every little detail. one of many cost-saving medicare advantage benefits from scan health plan for 2022. call today or ask your agent about scan health plan. welcome back one of the questions scientists are investigating with covid is whether it has an impact beyond. pardon me just physical. is there damage to the brain as a result of battling the disease a new study just published in the journal of the american medical association neurology found some alarming symptoms in teenagers joining us now is dr. claire johns at ucsf pediatrician and co-author of this. for a co first author i might add. thank you so much for joining

us. thank you for having me so three teens treated at ucsf's spending off children's hospital developed psychiatric symptoms, right? what types of symptoms and how severe were they? yeah, these patients all developed. sudden onset psychet psychet psh symptoms that were quite severe and requiring hospitalization those included psychosis delusions and also cognitive slowing. trouble thinking so dr. johns. have we seen anything like this in adults who get covid? we have and t collaborating with for this study. also saw some patients at yale who had similar symptoms. okay. so what do we think is attacking the brain there? is that their own antibodies that are supposed to fight the virus, but somehow they didn't get programmed correctly or what do we think happened?

yeah, what we saw in two of the three patients with covid-19. who also presented withh psychosis was that they had anti-neural antibodies in their csf and it's possible that these. could have been rogue antibodies attacking the brain the studies too small to tell for sure, but there were antibodies produced during covid infection presumably yeah, it's a small sample group. so i imagine there's still a lot to learn but did these three have prior? psychiatric issues that make them perhaps more likely to have such a issue. two of t of t of t of t of t of two patients that had the autoantibodies in their brain did have psychiatric histories the third one who did not show evidence of having those antibodies in their brain fluid

did not have a psychiatric history. all right, did the symptoms go away with treatment? yes, one patie treated did have a resolution of most of her symptoms after being treated with a msn called intravenous, which is used to treat autoimmune diseases and i was there when she received the treatment she went from having frank delusions and being pretty combative to her delusions starting to subside and being a lot more like less combative more relatable more organized. do you have any predictions if this will come back that is if they'll continue to suffer episodes. of these psychiatric symptoms in the future i think the study is too small to know there's one page and who we studied who

although improved after treatment does continue to have struggles with some mood issues and also other cognitive and memory issues. would you see this finding is more reason for teens to give vaccinated? definitely all right last thing before. i let you go here dr. johns. the pandemic has led to a lot of mental health issues in kids and young adults. what signs should parents look for that may signal they need professional help and go see yeah, that's a great question because the pandemic has certainly taken a toll on a lot of us and we're not trying to stay with this study that every teenager who gets covid and goes into a florid psychosis, but if during even an asymptomatic covid infection any patient or kid who has a really setting and onset of new delusions paranoia said images and mood that are

really different from their normal baseline that would make us as clinicians concerned that there might be something else going on. all right ucsf pediatrician dr. claire johns. thank you so very much for your time in sharing the results of your study with us. my pleasure. thank you coming up next somebody who deals with weapons on movie sets talks about the deadly shooting involving.

two action for alec baldwin's movie rust is on hold in new mexico until the investigation is complete into how a fatal tragedy could have happened last week actor alec baldwin fired a prop gun during rehearsal that has been declared cold as in no live rounds, but somehow that was not the case cinematographer. helena hutchens was killed and the film director joel souza was wounded so many questions as to what went wrong joining us to help us understand. the process is a veteran. horror who's worked on many

movies and tv productions. stepka huang from outside chicago step that thanks so much for joining us. step to lee. it's very nice to be here. stepca lee. thank you so much. i do apologize for that as an armor on a movie set. you control the firearms, right? you ensure the safety of all those involved on the set. so the million dollar question we have for you because you you know the process. is how did a gun that contained a fatal projectile get into the hands of an actor who believe it was saved. i know we know don't know the details of this case, but what should have been in place? i trust me that's the question. we are all asking ourselves this any type of ammunition should never be in a firearm that's been declared cold. in fact, i always show the actors i open up the gun physically. i show the actors that there's no ammunition. i show the camera crew anybody who's in the scene. this is announced to everybody

and these are all very very standard procedures we have on every that all right based on what you've read reported on this particular case which things sounded like anomalies things that you know shouldn't have happened. almost everything procedurally. yes, yes and again, of course, this is allegedly what happened reported and we don't know but the first ad should never be handling. the firearms firearms should never be left unattended on a table somewhere where they can be picked up by anyone any any firearm that's going to be declared cold has to be opened and checked and shown to everybody who's going to be handling it or going to be near it and any firearm that's going to be in a gunfire scene always has to be checked down the viral and make sure that there's nothing that could become a projectile everything about this is anomalous. we also don't ever point firearms at anybody in movies anytime. you see that on screen. it's a shot that's been cheated

by camera because that's not something we do. i think in this case there was saying the effect was supposed to be he's pointing at the camera right and fires into the camera and then wouldn't there be someone like this cinematographer directly in the site or in that? of sight or vision or direction if we need to do a scene where we are firing a blank and you want to see that down camera shot the way i've done it is we will do. band camera, so no operator and we put lexan up in front of it to protect the camera equipment and nobody's behind there if we're doing some sort of very close lined up shot like that. there are actually quite a lot of different ways that you can do this that don't put anybody actually behind the firearm. stepca. can you explain the difference because you use the word blanks right? i think there's a lot of confusion between you know, what's a live ammo. what's a blank? what's a dummy and what is typically used, right? yes, absolutely.

so a blank is the cartridge is just the powder and the cartridge and there's no bullet. there's no projectile a live round would be something that does have that projectile that can be expelled out of the firearm dummy rounds. they look like a live round but have no powder in them and but they are visually different we are always very careful with them and we can click them off with the fire and pointed at the ground to show that these do not fire so if we need to see ammunition, we use dummies which are the completely inner. no powder if we need to see gunfire we use blanks which again have no projectile to exit and we never use live rounds only very specific live fire shows would use that but those have their own safety protocols the live ammo should never be mixed in on a show like this ever. we just learned today that the rust crew had used prop guns for live target practice. apparently that day that morning is that hay as long as they're checked afterwards, or does that still violate all sorts of

rules? no, that's never something that that i would do or that anybody that i have ever worked with would do taking the movie guns and doing something like that during the day. no, we also learned today that police had taken away three revolvers spent casings and ammo in boxes loose and in fanny packs. does that sound kosher in terms of safekeeping and accounting a firearms on set? again, there should never have been a live ammunition on this set at all mixed in with the blanks or anywhere around those firearms. look the abc police drama. the rookie won't be using live weapons anymore as a result of this. i wonder if you think that's something that would be wise for the industry to adopt. what i would prefer to see io si for this type of safety breakdown to be prevented in the first place. i believe it's caused other nonfirems films that tragedies as well. we've had very serious incidents happen or near mrs. happen or at times when people have

unfortunately a tragically died on film sets that didn't have to do with firearms and it seems to me that that all stems from a major safety breakdown because when we follow our very basic you protocols for firearms. this doesn't happen and we do so many shows and so many movies so many tv shows video games everything that use blank fire and the number of incidents is thankfully very very small because we have these procedures in place. look, but i also wonder what the magic of the movies these days right you were talking about. look if we needed to see a bullet come out of a gun we would do this or that but look can't all these things be done in post-production like i mind i'm thinking if you need the bang right you don't need an actual explosion like edit the sound in imposed, or maybe if you need to see smoke coming out of the barrel like can't you just see gi that in? so i'm not a vfx artist, but my understanding is some of this can be done quite easily some of it i think is harder for example the motion of the slide.

it's also a surprisingly difficult sometimes for actors to react to firearms that are not going off. so that's a concern as well that there is a big debate in film in all aspects of film actually between cgi and practicals in a lot of different areas and because some people still believe that it looks better and is more immersive, but i want to that and i know some people will not think that's a good reason, but i want to stress that nobody is deciding to use blanks. i thinking that oh i'm going to do this thing that i think look. good at a risk to my cast and crew because we know when we hire qualified people that we keep this quite safe and lee huang. thank you so very much. let's continue thi

joining us today. we'll be here every weekday at 3:00. so i'll see you back here tomorrow. bye. tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. the news on the pfizer vaccine for children tonight. that key fda panel late today saying yes. and the states of emergency right now. tonight, this nor'easter, another round, new york to new england. wind gusts reaching 75 miles per hour. first, that pfizer child vaccine. the vote near unanimous. 17 in favor, one abstaining. and the new data tonight. pfizer saying the vaccine is 91% effective for children against symptomatic infections. this vaccine for kids 5 to 11, children will receive two shots, each shot one-third of the adult dose. we know many parents still have questions tonight, so dr. jha is standing by to help answer them. also, that powerful nor'easter still childrening. tonight, more