>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. kristen: hello. i am kristen sze. you are watching "getting answers." today, we will take a close look at the east coast election, nationwide, and if they have an impact on midterms and the next presidential election. also, we will talk about what needs to be accomplished impact climate change -- accomplished to impact climate change. first, parents probably have a lot of questions now that the cdc has approved pfizer shots for kids aged five to 11.

the first shots are going into young arms today. joining us to answer your questions is dr. maldonado. she is a member of the pediatric advisory panel for the cdc and someone who led the pfizer trial for six month olds to 11-year-olds. thank you for joining us today. i know today was pretty exciting, not just because it was the first day that young kids could get the vaccine, but it was rewarding to you and the folks in your trial for another reason. >> absolutely. we just got notice from our families that -- we just let our families know in the trial that they were going to be unblinded. all of the families got to find out after all these months whether they got the vaccine or placebo. of course, for the kids who got placebo, they will be offered opportunities to get the vaccine. the kids who are vaccinated were also super happy. one of the moms said she was

more excited now than when she found out she was pregnant. a lot of happy tears and excitement that other children will have this vaccine. kristen: is it your advice to all parents to get your kids the shock as soon as -- get their kids the shot as soon as possible? are there certain people who should wait? >> i really think, for the vast majority of children five and over, they should be getting vaccinated. there are very small categories of people who shouldn't get vaccinated, and you can read more about that or hear about it from your pediatric provider. those are generally people who have very specific heart issues recently or who have severe sevr allergies to components of the vaccine. everybody else should be getting vaccinated. this is a really important disease. it causes hospitalizations and deaths in children and can be completely avoided. kristen: what was the vaccine

efficacy in your trial? >> overall, the trial demonstrated 90.7%, so we round up to 91% efficacy, which means that there was a reduction, 90% reduction in the risk of getting symptomatic covid disease in the children who are vaccinated compared to the kids with the placebo. very, very effective. kristen: i don't know if you are allowed to answer this question, and i apologize if it is something you cannot get into. within your trial, did any children die or have serious consequences that dr. shot -- that got the shot or kids who didn't get the shot? >> more than 4000 children were in the study. an additional number were enrolled later. there were no deaths and no serious side effects relative to the vaccine. kristen: ok. there are a lot of parents that

are not going to rush out and get the vaccination. as you probably saw the numbers yourself, only 1/3 say they will do it right away. more than 1/3, perhaps up to 1/2, say they will wait or perhaps never do it. there may be some information holding them back. would you clarify a couple of the biggest myths you have seen? >> i think a lot of families are naturally hesitant with new vaccines in general. i think that's ok. that's fine. people have questions. they want to be more involved with their child's health care, and i think that is fine. what we really want people to do is make sure they get the information they need, that we can provide for them. the american academy of pediatrics, just about every medical center and public health department that i know of, is putting out lots of information, townhalls, frequently asked questions, etc., so that people can get their questions answered.

that's really the major one is people not knowing much about the vaccine and wanting to learn more. that's true for every vaccine. kristen: i think there are some who are concerned about infertility as a possibility. >> absolutely. the specific ones, really, there's two major ones. there's a bunch of little, small percentages, but the big one is fertility. several months ago, there was a european scientist who suggested that, through some misinterpretation of data, this vaccine could cause infertility based on the way the spike protein looked. he was completely wrong, and all of that information was not true. but that myth has persisted, that idea that fertility could be affected, even for adult women, adult individuals who want to benone of that is true.

kristen: what about autism? >> absolutely not. autism, we know, there have been many studies now demonstrating that autism is a genetic that we see can be predicted in prenatal studies. we know that this is not related to something that a child will get through a vaccine. it is absolutely not going to happen. kristen: what about myocarditis? some people think myocarditis -- link myocarditis with getting the shot. isn't there some data that suggests you are actually less like to get myocarditis if you got the shot? >> the question is about risks. there is some risk. it's incredibly small. of getting heart inflammation in older teen boys and young adult males, between the ages of 12 to 30.

the highest risk seems to be around 16 to 30 year olds. that's on the order of a couple dozen cases per million doses of vaccines given to that age group. that can occur, but in girls, it is virtually not a risk. and in younger children, we know that myocarditis in general is not a high risk. the other issue we know is myocarditis from the vaccine is very short-lived. all of the children who have been followed who hide it from the vaccine have returned to normal heart function at this point very shortly after they developed that. kristen: i'm glad you brought that up. >> the other issue is that covid itself is much more likely to cause severe myocarditis in children than the vaccine would. kristen: what do you say to the parents who went out that covid -- who point out that covid is not one of the leading causes of death for five-year-olds to

11-year-olds in the country? in their risk-benefit analysis, they choose not to get it. >> we know that over 700,000 adults have died, so that's really a tragedy. however, only about 20,000 children under the age of 18 die every year. so, that's really good news, in the u.s., but we want to keep those numbers low. if you look at the number of children who have died from covid, even though it is probably less than 1000 children, it still is in the top 10 causes of death for children. if you wanted to save your child from getting hurt in a car accident or a bike accident, you would put a seatbelt on them or a bike helmet. it's the same thought, that we want to prevent these deaths and hospitalizations, if we can. thankfully, they are not in the hundreds of thousands. kristen: what about six-month-olds to form -- four-year-olds? how long before a vaccine is approved for them? >> we started to enroll children

in the six-month to four-year category some time ago, but over the last few months, we have been focusing more on finishing the five-year-old to 11-year-old study so we could get that vaccine done. now we are going to be able to keep enrolling children under five into the other studies. so, we are hoping to be done by the end of this year. we don't really think there will be a vaccine decision for under fives until sometime in 2022, but we are working hard on that as well. kristen: dr. yvonne thank you for your work, information, and time. >> thank you. it was a pleasure. kristen: we hear about midterm and pre-midterm elections and pote

kristen: president biden r this afternoon to a disappointing election night for democrats in key races seen as bellwethers or omens for the congressional midterms next year. mr. biden said, quote, "people want us to get things done." the biggest loss is where governor mcauliffe lost to glenn youngkin. joining us now to talk about what that means for the biden agenda, what american voters want, and what the future may hold, is abc news's political director. >> great to be with you. kristen: the virginia governor's race was the biggest loss for democrats, but even the supertight new jersey governor race doesn't bode well for the party heading into the midterms. was this a matter of democrats

not getting things done, as president biden suggested? >> there's two big takeaways that democrats have. unfortunately, they go in different directions. one is they didn't get enough done. the other is that they were trying to do too much and they didn't explain what it all meant. that's the conundrum that democrats have faced throughis . how far, how fast, and how much you want to push. there are some voters who were not likely to vote. maybe they felt like there wasn't enough reason to get democrats to vote because they felt like promises were broken over the last year. there's others who say what the democrats are fighting over in congress doesn't connect with my life. that's a problem. there are different takeaways from this disaster of an election night. kristen: it was interesting that governor mcauliffe tried to tie glenn youngkin to trump.

why didn't it work in virginia an increasingly blue state? >> there's two main factors. one is california. while it's blue, it is bluer than virginia and trump's name means more. newsom was able to define his opponent more, and conservative talk show host larry elder. mcauliffe was running against someone who was harder to pigeonhole. it might be an issue of timing. even though it was only six weeks or so ago that california voters went to the polls, that was still happening in an environment where the approval ratings were relatively steady. not quite as bad as it has been. the last couple weeks, around gas prices in addition to inflation, regular concerns about the economy and supply chains.

things have changed really fast. things have picked up in terms of the crazy things that are happening. all of those things have been a drag on democrats the last few weeks. kristen: in politics, a lot of it is timing. whoever is holding the bag. i want to point out this interesting development. in the 2020 presidential race, president biden picked up a lot of women, but a lot of women, especially white women without college educations in virginia, flocked to the gop candidate this time. what drove that? >> education, education, education. there was a relentless focus by republican ken -- glenn youngkin on education. are your kids facing mandates they shouldn't? there was one line where terry mcauliffe said he didn't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. that was widely marked and seized upon -- mocked and seized upon. that issue above all else is

something we heard and saw in the exit polls. it was driving women, who may have been driven away from the republican party, back into the fold. i want a governor who will give me more of a say in my kids' education. that was a determinative factor for glenn youngkin. kristen: parents -- the power of parents drove governor newsom's recall initially as well. that's kind of what got it going. i wonder if you think education will become a central issue next year for the midterms, and perhaps even in the 2024 presidential election. >> i think both parties are figuring out how to reach parents. clearly, there is a lot of frustration about what's happened to kids over the last couple years, in terms of three school years being disrupted by covid, what the endgame looks like, how much control unions should have. those are critical questions that every politician has to be asking themselves today. kristen: you mentioned president biden's approval rating is lower

now than any other modern president in his term. they do go up and down, as president biden tried to dismiss. how deep of a hole is this for him? >> the only one that is been lower in modern times is president trump, whose numbers were consistently lower, but he did have a strong base. independents, moderates m basically abandoned biden. are they gettable again? not necessarily. these midterm or off-year elections like this are often harbingers of the midterm year, but they don't make any guarantees about what happens next. some democrats are saying it's good to have the wake-up call and the chance to adjust messaging. there's others who feel like the die is cast. kristen: one of the biggest wins for democrats last night is for mayor of boston. there were two democrats

running, but progressives will say that was a big win for michelle wu. a position previously held only by white men. she is the protégé of elizabeth warren. some progressives are saying we need to go all in on that agenda and stop trying to get the middle, which we are not going to get. there are a lot of people saying, no, we forgot about the middle, and that's why we lost virginia. how do democrats make sense of that? >> the country is a complicated place. if you're going to have a winning nationwide coalition, it will look different in boston, california, massachusetts, virginia, new jersey, not to mention ohio or iowa, or florida, where democrats have been slipping for some time. find the message that works. the democrats have a serious problem around their national brand identity. people have been warning them about this for a long time. there were signs of this in 2016. even in the 2018 midterms, when

they did quite well. there were glaring warning signals about what was going on in terms of how the democratic party is being perceived. right now, they're at a very difficult point and a strange point for a party that has the majority in the house and senate, to be looking at this and slipping -- seeing it slip away in front of them. kristen: last night pointed to the increasing polarization we are seeing politically in this country. during previously difficult times, there were always some core american values that held us together as a nation. even if i believed in lower taxes, higher taxes, smaller government, bigger government -- what are our common core values as americans now? >> that's a difficult question and it's not an optimistic moment to answer questions like that, when you see elections undermined like they were a year ago. i would like to think there is a shared sense of patriotism, shared sense of community.

even issues like schools. getting back to that, people feel like they have a role in their children's education is as fundamental as it gets. this is a divided country, no question about that. there's nothing in my time covering politics quite like it, but it's certainly at a low point right now. kristen: let's hope we will see more reasons for optimism in the near future. always a pleasure. >> thank you. kristen: we will shift gears. next, it's easy to make pledges to slow down climate change, but to slow down climate change, but are they ♪ ♪ increased transportation benefits. one more thing you can rely on. one of many cost-saving medicare advantage benefits from scan health plan for 2022. call today, or ask your agent about scan health plan.

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. kristen: joining us now to talk more about this, senior policy advisor on climate and environment under former governor jerry brown, now director of project climate at uc berkeley. ken, thanks a lot for your time. you may have to unmute yourself.

there you go. got you now. today is a little less sexy in terms of the headlines, but it is the pledging of money to fight climate change by moving to clean energy. former new york city mayor michael bloomberg said he's going to spend $150 million to try to close thousands of coal-fired power plants in the world. why this particular commitment, and what is its intended impact? >> he is committed to closing about 2500 coal-fired power plants around the world and 500 more that are proposed. coal is a fossil fuel, and it is one of the biggest sources in the world of co2, carbon dioxide, the largest greenhouse gas. so, this is a very significant commitment by bloomberg, and if it is successful, it will radically change how people get power around the world and move

toward renewable energy that doesn't produce greenhouse gases. kristen: in the past few days, we have heard pledges by nations to cut greenhouse emissions methane emissions,, and deforestation. the ultimate goal is to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5°. we are currently looking at possibly a 2.7° rise if we don't change our ways. what would happen to our world if that were to happen? >> we are starting to see the very first pieces of what will happen with large hurricanes, storms and droughts and snowfall, sea level rise. 2.7 degrees celsius increase in world temperature averaged would be hugely destructive. it would melt most of the antarctic ice shelf and raise sea level by literally feet. an aroundd california -- and

around california, we would flow between massive drought, a complete change to our ecosystem, damages to the coastline, to the houses -- everything you can think of would be disrupted. you are showing pictures of drought. it would be exacerbated far worse than what we have now. of course, the heat impacts and the health impacts of heat from 2.7° would literally put millions of people at risk for huge health impact and even death. kristen: all right. well, obviously, everybody wants to avoid that scenario. the question is what to do about it. california is at the climate summit. yesterday, we interviewed our delegation leader about it. california is trying to get others to follow what we have been doing. what are our successes we can celebrate and share? what are some of the things we still need to do better on? >> the biggest success has been

california's move to renewable energy. we are also leaving the world in moving to cars, electric cars, changing our transportation system. we have not done enough on the transportation system. it's still our largest source of emissions. we are leading the world on methane emission reduction. we have to do more in how our houses are producing and using energy. i would say probably the number one thing is to change how we drive. kristen: i have about one minute left. i want to ask you about the fact that some of the world's biggest polluters were not at the conference, china and russia, for example. the u.s. was there, but any commitments made by our current administration, the world is viewing it as it could be reversed by the next administration. consider the criticism of activists such as granite --

greta thunberg, is this pointless? >> it's not pointless. whatever we can do to reduce below 2.7° on our current trajectory will reduce hardship around the world. that is absolutely not pointless. and not only that, there are so many things that we can do that are possible and that are being done by places like california and other parts of the world. so, there is no reason at this point to lose hope. it's not going to be easy, but we have lots of possible solutions. many of them are in place in california. kristen: i'm happy to hear that. we won't lose hope. we will take a short break on the

tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. the major republican victory in virginia. the message to president biden and the democrats. also thousands of children now getting vaccinated. and the nfl star revealing he has covid and won't play in the big game. now questions over his vaccination status. tonight, after the republican victory in virginia, president biden now sending a message to democrats in congress, saying the democratic party needs to, quote, produce for the american people. and urging congress to pass those two bills held up by in-fighting among the democrats. tonight, virginia's republican governor elect glenn youngkin celebrating his victory, in a state president biden won by ten points just a year ago. rachel scott standing by tonight. the first covid vaccinations

now under w