the prevention, early detection and treatment of cancer. building a better bay area moving forward finding solutions. this is abc. the news confusion and frustration in the east bay tonight over the lack of enforcement when it comes to a month old covid safety requirement for indoor dining and now contra costa county supervisors are demanding answers from the health department. good evening. thank you for joining us. i'm dan ashley and i'mma dates you're watching abc 7 news at five live here on abc 7 hulu live and wherever you stream. the official messages are mixed in one east bay county when it comes to enforcement of a vaccine mandate for inside dining. contra costa county has required restaurants to check for vaccine cards or negative covid tests in september, but as abc 7 news reporter laura anthony tells us it's now unclear whether county health officials are actually enforcing those rules. there has been no official

change in policy are approaches always started and led with education in early september contra costa county instituted a new requirement on restaurants bars and gyms. the customers must show a negative co or proof of vaccination to dine or work out inside that led to the closure of indoor dining at in and out restaurants in contra costa which refused to carry out the order in november how are the county health department issued zero citations or fines despite receiving dozens of complaints to my account 54 complaints were specifically to the vaccine vaccination requirement and then there were another 26 that had multiple issues some of those are in process of still being addressed. i'm disappointed and just in troubled by not seeing any fines issued in november because i think fines are often needed also as a message to other

restaurants county staff have been very strongly told that they are to enforce the health order and that includes citations and the possibility of closing down restaurants. our goal is not to issue fines are our goal is to get businesses to comply with the some restaurant owners and managers tell us they're confused by the mixed messages. i just kind of wait for the costa county health officials to say okay you're free to let in whoever you'd like, but we just don't know if that's going to happen within that's gonna happen adding to their frustration here in contra costa county some restaurant owners told us they are well aware that their customers can drive a relatively short distance and go into an establishment without having to show a vaccine card. we share the same county lines and you'll walk one step here or one step there and it's a different policy in contra, costa county. laura anthony abc 7 news. alright now to the latest on the

omicron variant the number of mutations in this particular variant could also be its downfall actually and that's a good thing for us abc 7 news reporter luz pena has more on the new study out of south africa and what it means for the future of this virus loose. well, very preliminary data that we're getting from south africa, but it's looking promising. yes omicron is more infectious. any other variant but there's a possibility that he may cause less severe disease. preliminary data out of south africa is giving the world insight into how strong omicron really is the south african medical research council just reported this variant may cause less severe cases of covid-19. i'm vaccinated people they're going to the hospital in south africa, but they're not suffering as severe disease. they're not requiring oxygen omicron has 50 mutations 32 of those are in the spike protein making it more. visible than any other variant dr. warner green is a senior

investigator and virologist for the stone institutes, he believes all those mutations could be it's downfall now. it's possible with this virus that it may be a 10 what we call a tenuated. it has enough mutations. that it doesn't cause as much disease, that would be wonderful, but let me stress that we don't know that yet scientists across the world. areareare one of those teams is use yourselves quantitative biosciences institute there was an event in norway where there was thinkers over a hundred individuals at this event and i think the vast majority is not all of them are vaccinated 60 these people got infected with omicron. so vaccinated people can definitely get reinfected or infected but very good news is is that those 16 individuals all of them mild or no symptoms.

down omicron and found how the virus is staying alive. so we think that these virus is evolving to transmit every time better in humans, and that's why it has cumulated all these mutations in the spike protein as more data is collected dr. green believes. there's an encouraging possibility. we might wind up handling it like the flu you might even get a flu shot in the coronavirus shot in the same vaccine. vaccination continues to be the best way to stop this virus from mutating every expert i spoke to today said it's going to take longer to beat covid-19 and all the mutations were seen now if we don't vaccinate the rest of world fast dan lose when we first heard of this omic. in a few days ago. there was a lot of concern what is making doctors at this point believe that omicron may not cause severe disease after all. done based on this preliminary study from south africa patients infected with omicron are not requiring oxygen also the time

they're spending hospitalizes less than those who have been infected with the delta variant. it's actually about a third of the time all these factors are hints that this new variant may be less severe than the delta variance. but again, it's too early to say we should have more data in the next two weeks then let's hope all that's true loose. thanks so much stricter travel restrictions are now in effect for international travelers coming into the united states. they're now required to show a negative test results taken within a day of their arrival this applies to both us citizens and foreign nationals regardless of vaccination status people who have hovered from covid in the past 90 days are exempt travelers arriving this morning told us the new rules can be difficult especially for those arriving on long-haul flights stocks rebounded today as fears. eased a bit about the potential impact of the omicron variant. the dow was up nearly 647 points the nasdaq was up more than 139 the s&p 500 gained or i should say regain nearly all of last

week's losses closing up 53 points happening now a little bit of and there is returning to parts of the bay area. this is a live look from our camera at the exploratorium here in san francisco. and for all the on the conditions. let's go to ab a news meteorologist, sandhya patel, sandia i'm a we are tracking some showers tonight, which is a welcome change. you don't see it from our exploratorium camera. i want to show you a live view right now from our emeryville camera. we're not only dealing with the fog and the clouds obviously visibility has been poor as you take a look at live doppler 7. this is a welcome change we have wet weather moving into the north bay getting you down to street level santa rosa guerneville road petaluma hill road. notice around rohnert park. and grove you will also notice some pockets of showers there. it's a level one on our storm impact scale tonight tomorrow morning. watch out for wet. roadways slight chance of thunder mainly along the coast areas of fog as well as you take a look at the hourly forecast. most of those showers will be coming in late tonight, even though there's spotty right now

11 pm more areas will be looking at that wet. here tomorrow morning before you head out the door if you're an early commuter, make sure you have those umbrellas four to eight am. we still have those showers going. this isn't our only opportunity for rain. i'll be back with an accuweather 7-day forecast that i think you're going to want to stay tuned for i'll be armor. all right. thank you sandia today four of the biggest cities in san mateo county began a new pilot program. it partners trained mental health professionals with police officers to respond to behavioral health crisis calls abc 7 news reporter dustin dorsey explains how the program will benefit the community. in order to grow sometimes it takes self-reflection with 14 years of law enforcement experience, san mateo county supervisor, don horley aimed to find a solution for how police can best respond to mental health calls. my goal always was to solve situations that have safe way that provides for public safety and everybody gets to go home at night. that's a you know, both the mentally ill person as well as the deputy sheriff's or police

officers with not every case turning out that way he asked what can we do differently? as of today daily city south san francisco, san mateo and redwood city police departments will send officers and train clinicians to mental health calls. this is community centered wellness this is community focused wellness. and then freeing up our police officers in addition to allowing police to focus on crime the project aims to provide an alternative to jail for people undergoing a behavioral health crisis. clinician. brianna. fair says, it puts the people best training for the issues on the front lines. i will be able to compile all these community resources into my you know, my toolbox is what they call it and be able to take that toolbox every call and really take over in that aspect of just being able to provide the best care rather than just the bare minimum even so redwood city-based police reform advocates wanted more. there's a lot of fear that police officers will actually

like unrightfully use force on people especially mental health crisis situations. so because of that we'd be much preferred. we'd much prefer that the police do not come on every single emergency call do a partnership with stanford the results of the program are monitored and will be looked at next year. and mateo county dustin dorsey abc 7 news new details from oakland police tonight the reward in the deadly shooting of retired police officer. kevin dashida has now risen to 38,500. he was killed last month while working as a security guard for a tv news crew police are looking to speak with a person believed to have cell phone video connected to that shooting that could be critical and they are also searching for a white accurate tl. tonight an investigation is underway in oakland after a fire damaged the christmas tree at jacqueline and square why firefighters believe that this was arson. first inflation continues to rise concerned is growing about student loans and all cash real

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also try for cough, mucus & congestion. tree lighting is expected to go on this saturday night. despite someone setting the tree on fire overnight abc 7 news reporter melanie. woodrow has the story. with less than a week until the official lighting ceremony this already decorated christmas tree is now part of an arson investigation the oakland fire department says someone set the tree on fire around 120 this morning. the fire department is approximately 200 yards away and firefighters arrived and put out the fire within minutes. definitely could have been a much scarier scene had it taken longer for the crew to get there oakland fire department spokesperson. michael hunt says surveillance video shows one person set the fire. they left behind a canister though hunt did not want to find what type it is very clear that this was intentionally set at a very dangerous scene for everyone involved less than 10%

of the tree suffered significant. damage and the tree is structurally sound with no risk of it falling at this point according to the fire department on says the plan is to fill in sections that were burned or cover up sections so that this saturday's tree lighting can go on as planned to have someone. potentially jeopardize that and jeopardize the opportunity for people to gather in communal spaces safely really is a is a really frustrating moment right now. the fire department is coordinating its investigation with the oakland police department melanie woodrow abc 7 news. the pleasanton city council is set to vote tomorrow on tougher smoking restrictions the plan up for consideration would ban smoking and townhomes condominiums and buildings with three or more attached units that don't have separate ventilation systems smoking would also be prohibited in indoor or outdoor common areas such as ways lobbies community rooms playgrounds even parking lots the band would extend into

outdoor private spaces where secondhand smoke can drift into other areas where it would affect others similar bands are now in effect in neighboring cities. all right. for our consumer headlines now, there's growing concern about student loans and calls for more oversight on all cash real estate deals plus a new forecast on rising inflation, which is really picking up 7 on your side's michael. finney is here with details michael. well every time you turn around it seems worse, huh? well, maybe it's time to refinance that mortgage after all the nation's business economists have sharply raised their forecast for inflation a panel of economic forecasters expects consumer price to rise. percent this quarter compared to a year ago now nearly 60% of the panelists expect the job market to reach full employment over the next year many think that full employment will come with increased pay which will keep inflation boiling over for the next three years the central bank's 2% annual inflation target has been more than

doubled so far this year. the treasury wants more oversight of all cash real estate deals. the bite administration is looking to spanned reporting requirements on all cash real estate deals to help crack down on bad actors. the administration says you as properties are used to launder money made through illicit activity. the treasury department has posted notice that it is seeking public comment on potential regulations. those who owe on student loans are still able to dodge making payments become february 1st the new normal disappears in the old pay your student loans reappears borrowers. haven't had to make a student loan payment since march 2020. that's when the federal government froze payments because of the growing pandemic and its effect on unemployment rates. there have been several extinctions, but all of that comes to an end on january 31st. bankrate survey shows only 31%

of those who owe on student loans expect to go back to their old payment routines and get this 18% say they have no plan whatsoever. really interesting. all right, michael. thanks very much. a san francisco high school student volunteering his free time and his own money to encourage his classmates to get vaccinated. you're going to meet this first time entrepreneur and tell you how he's your eyes. beautiful on the outside, but if you have diabetes, there can be some not-so-pretty stuff going on inside. it's true, with diabetic retinopathy, excess sugar can damage blood vessels, causing vision loss or even blindness. so remember this: now is the time to get your eyes checked. eye care is important to your long-term diabetes management. see a path forward

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and protect against vision loss. in a recent clinical study, patients using salonpas patch reported reductions in pain severity, using less or a lot less oral pain medicines. and improved quality of life. that's why we recommend salonpas. it's good medicine. as a first-time entrepreneur in the times of covid a student from lincoln high school in san francisco has created 1,000 vaccine card protectors to donate to clinics abc 7 senior education reporter liam melendez met up with michael yu today to discuss his advocacy work to encourage people to get vaccinated. michael you and his brother christopher have been pushing students at lincoln high in san francisco to get vaccinated. for halloween, they dressed up in a vaccine and an antibody

costume to put kids at ease while getting vaccinated. actually, they loved it. they even wanted to take selfies with me at lincoln. michael is known as the student who has created these vaccine card holders that are given out at school clinics. he personally paid for all the materials needed actually bought them all online with the money. i got from a previous internship that was actually about researching insert. genetic material into cells michael his brother and cousins then assembled them to give out to students as of yesterday 90% of those 12 to 17 year olds in san francisco have been fully vaccinated. the vaccine was only recently approved for the younger kids 23% of them five through 11 years old have received both shots. we really focus on just in the community together helping each other out and we want to give that entrepreneurial spirit to students like michael. he has done so many great things. he's also done things for their

for special education students michaels. advocacy work is getting some attention outside of the school next month the san francisco board of supervisors will honor him with a special commendation. i just feel honored to be getting this award and i definitely will not be stopping with making projects like these in the future. in san francisco. lyanne melendez abc 7 news. check out michael. yeah sharp. all right, i always say if it's going to be gray a better. some rain, what was certainly gray today? i'm a professor about that. it was hound of the baskervilles were. well, and we do have gray skies, but we also have some rain, so there you just coming true dan and allah as you look at live doppler 7 right now the rain is falling in the north bay santa rosa has been reporting light rain. last couple of hours right now as we go down to street level novato nevada boulevard not all of this is hitting the ground. it's a little misty drizzly around ignacio boulevard, san francisco a little mist and

drizzle around the richmond sunset district and as we take a look at a wider perspective here, the system is just off the pacific northwest it is going to continue to push this moisture in our direction so later on tonight. we will be seeing more of the wet weather right now from our golden gate bridge camera. it looks a little bit damp out there. it's a level one storm on our storm impact scale. so a light system tonight tomorrow morning scattered showers. there is a slight possibility of thunder watch out for slick roads and areas of fog san carlos right now reporting visibility down to two and a quarter miles. so six o'clock tonight, we have those scattered showers around the region as we go into about 10 pm. you will notice some more beginning to develop as that system continues to press into our area five o'clock tomorrow morning if you are commuting and you don't have the opportunity to work from home. watch out for those slippery roadways eight o'clock. we still have a few more showers going and then nicely the skies clear out as you take a look at those rainfall estimates expecting really light amounts

anywhere from a couple hundreds in the south bay to about 1500 since santa rosa. there will be a few areas that will pick up a little bit more from our emeryville camera. we are looking out towards the bay tonight and emeryville scattered showers drizzle through the morning more rain chances into next week, and we do have cold mornings coming up with areas of both friday and saturday your temperatures right now 40s and 50s highs today in the 40s and 50s. i mean it felt like winter here in the bay area tomorrow afternoon, you will notice that the temperatures will come up so in the morning because of the cloud cover and the extra moisture, we're gonna see temperatures not falling much of 40s 50s. make sure you grab the umbrellas before you go for the afternoon. it will be noticeably milder than today. most areas will be in the low to mid 60s plenty of sun and we're going to fast forward. a wednesday after some morning drizzle some shower chances going into thursday. the sierra will be picking up snow which is a good thing and really that's not our only opportunity for wet weather. we'll show you that in a moment winter storm. watch 4 pm wednesday for the

sierra until 4 pm thursday above 5500 feet expecting up to 10 inches for the peaks difficult travel conditions. so plan accordingly the accuweather 74 cast level 1 morning showers afternoon sun little drizzle wednesday and then wednesday night into thursday. we have another level one system coming our a cold and frosty friday saturday mornings, but look what's showing up another one? monday into monday with wet windy weather so dan and alma finally the storm door as they say open. excellent. we need it. thanks after the break a new effort to ease congestion on the bay bridge will tell you about the new parking from one moment to the next, our kids become the most important part of our lives. and even though the years pass, that never changes. we never stop worrying about them.

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our live newscast breaking news weather and more with our new abc 7 bay area app on apple tv android tv fire tv and roku to search abc 7 bay area and download it. you'll be glad to know that help is coming. try to ease traffic on the bay bridge. the mtc is opening two commuter parking lots in the east bay. this one is located off buchanan street in albany under interstate 80. the other is off fruitvale avenue near 880 in oakland. both are intended to be used for carpooling or employee shuttle services. the lots are gated and we'll have a parking attendant on site. they'll be free this month and

next so people can try it out after that. they'll cost $3 a day or $60 a month. all right. finally tonight. it is crunch time for the glide foundation in san francisco. it is today volunteers began filling their annual holiday food bags, then load them onto the trucks for distribution later this week. this will be the second straight year the food will be delivered not handed out as glide has done for decades due to covid of course the food will be going to different partners throughout san francisco people get a traditional meal turkey potatoes stuffing vegetables fruit. and the dessert more than 5,500 bags will be delivered this year. by the way. glide says if you're looking to lend a helping hand this year the best way to do it is to make a contribution. they are all set for volunteers and turkeys. i do fabulous work every year so help if you can we'll decide what they've been mirrors next. we appreciate your time. i'm danish and i'm on a date for sandhya patel michael finney all

of us. thank you for joining us. we'll see again at six o'clock. we'll see again at six o'clock. a jelly bean that's good for you? nature's bounty introduces new jelly bean vitamins. good for you nutrients in a tastier for you form. more sweet dreams, more flavorful immune support. new nature's bounty jelly beans. live bountifully. more flavorful immune support. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ visit your volvo retailer for special offers during our holiday safely sales event.

tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. in new york city tonight, the major news. the new first of its kind mandate. and what we're seeing across the country even before this new variant. first, this new mandate in new york city applying to nearly 185,000 businesses. and children 5 to 11 will also need proof of at least one dose of vaccine to get into many places throughout the city. across the nation, meanwhile, a 27% spike in new covid cases, and this trend even before omicron. the new variant now in at least 18 states tonight. new developments tonight in the deadly high school shooting, the parents of 15-year-old held in separate cells after in- being caught, authorities say, after being on the run.