>> fin fin fin fin fin kristen: i'm kristen sze, you are watching "getting answers." live on abc seven, hulu live and wherever you stream. we asked experts your questions to get answers for you in real time. we will look at part of governor newsom's proposed budget, how much is going towards education what are the priorities, and what more can be done to help school districts struggling now? we will look at what is being called a national blood crisis and what is being done about it. details on an omicron specific vaccine and which current vaccine is best upper deck -- protecting you against omicron. debates over masks and how long you can wear yours. plus, an ominous warning about how many will be infected. joining us to answer our

questions, infectious disease specialist dr. peter 10 home. great to have you here. >> always a pleasure. thank you for having me on. kristen: we will start big picture. omicron, i read accounts for 98% of covid cases now. where are we with the surgeon now? are we peeking yet or close to it? >> there is some initial -- there is good evidence from new york that they are starting to crest. new york is not san francisco. meaning we may crest overallst e earlier than new york because we are warmer. new york is plagued with inded w gatherings, really difficult to escape the cold weather. we are hoping, back to your question, that we will peak in the next week or two, and then we will be downhill, three to four weeks into the dissent. kristen: the national story now is the hospitalizations are at

an all-time high during the pandemic. how is it here? how is it in the bay area, are we running out of capacity or are we ok? >> we are on the edge. as opposed to one year ago or last winter, fewer people are in icus. overall, we have about 60 patients, 60 to 70 patients with covid. only 10 of them are in the icu. and about 30% to 40% are coming for something else and then happen to have covid. nevertheless, we are close at capacity of many services. i think especially with people out sick, but is really what is straining the hospital. kristen: a little bit of a silver lining if you look deeply at the numbers. still tried not to get it now if you can avoid it. which brings me to vaccines. big news, pfizer is planning to make an omicron specific

vaccine. tell us about this. >> yes. basically, with the mrna vaccine, you cut and paste the code of the genetic material for the spike protein that you want. omicron looks twisted, you can sequence this new thing, make the code for the spike protein that looks different and make a new vaccine. pfizer can do that by march, they said. moderna by fall. for your first question, we probably would have been done with omicron by then. it will only be as a vaccine if omicron stays because the only thing in town. which may or may not occur, we may get a new variant that would look different. some people say, why not just give boosters with the same thing that we already have, rather than make a new one? kristen: and that is not unreasonable, right? when you say that pfizer will be ready in march, is there an additional approval process after they say, it's done, and

how long does that take? dr. chin-hong: probably in arms april. it is hard to speculate. but you are right. it has to go through rounds of approval. you have to have data. she probably don't have to have disease data, but at least antibody data. that all goes into the consideration before approval. and then the fda, and then the cdc. kristen: and we will see if omicron is still the name of the game by then. which current vaccine is best at protecting us against covid? there is new data out of the u.k., right? dr. chin-hong: when you look at the u.k.'s data for boosting, it appears for symptomatic infection, anyway, moderna is hovering around 80% protection. when you look at pfizer, it is about 60% or so.

severe disease hospitalization and death close to 90%. it just depends. kristen: sandra has a question. if you got j&j and then pfizer as a booster, should you get a third shot? dr. chin-hong: that is a great question from sandra. i think most people thought j&j should have been a two shot dose. if you can get three, one-shot and two reminders to the immune system, that will be better than just two. kristen: don has a question, which i think a lot of people are starting to wonder. isn't it better that most people get this mild variant to help preclude a more serious variant to cold? what do you think? dr. chin-hong: there is no guarantee that you getting omicron will protect you against a future variant. that is the question. it will protect you against past variants like delta. personally, i would prefer not to get it then to get at all.

you still don't know if you will have chronic symptoms. we think it is less likely. we don't know if you will be one to go to the hospital. again, less likely. . but the risk is not. zero it is just less likely. kristen: ok. the world health organization and the fda, the heads of those organizations gave ominous warnings that suggests catching covid seems inevitable. what exactly did they say? dr. chin-hong: they said more than half of europe would get exposed in this current wave. the second point is it probably will be disruptive like it is to california and many vaccinated countries in europe. but the eastern part of europe where it is very unvaccinated, like 30%, 20%, that they may see serious impact on deaths and serious disease. that is the question. remember, south africa had a lot

of previous immunity from delta. it may look different from eastern europe. kristen: daniel wants to know since we are basing our predictions off of south africa, how are they doing now? is like getting back to normal? dr. chin-hong: life is getting back to normal. cases of -- cases have descended rapidly. hospitalizations are going down. if you are in south africa and you get infected, you don't have to isolate. you just walk around. with a mask for 10 days. that is the way they are viewing the infection right now. kristen: ok. that is very interesting, because right now, as you know, the suggestion is that you test, after five days, do whether you are negative and can get out of isolation. with testing, it is a mess. get tested, but it is impossible to get a test, and if you do get a test, sometimes you get false positives or false negatives. i think a lot of people are super confused. if you can give us the most practical advice on one to

really test and what kind of test to use, that would be great. dr. chin-hong: so you go to dinner, then you hear that five other people at the same dinner got covid. you have no symptoms. don't test immediately. if you have limited testing, wait three to five days, you test and then. . say you develop symptoms, the test is negative but everyone else was positive, you don't stop with that single test. you either do a throat and nose combined, or you try to get a pcr. you don't have to wait for exactly five days. suppose you got the pcr at seven and it was negative, or the test at seven was negative, you can exit at seven p the minimum isolation is five days for a credible symptom. if you have no symptoms and you are not sure you got it, like you are just testing, you can walk around with a mask on while you are waiting for the test. kristen: by the way, the biden

administration is making insurance companies pay for eight home tests per person starting this saturday. if you buy it this saturday, it should be picked up. the cdc director, dr. rochelle walensky, was at a senate hearing and she said rapid tests are not going toward the total case count in the u.s. aren't rapid tests the majority, and if so, does not mean that we are not getting the big picture and the infection rate could be worse? dr. chin-hong: the infection rate is definitely worse than we are seeing. tons of people are doing rapid testing. i think what is not -- what is accurate is the hospitalization rate and deaths. i think that is really probably the best measure of how we are doing as a society. the testing curve is also helpful. when we go up, when we go down, the absolute number, even though we had a million cases one day last week in the u.s., it is definitely an underestimate. kristen: i want to talk about masking. we know n95's are needed against

omicron, much better at filtering. since they are more costly, people want to know, how many hours and how many times can they wear them? dr. chin-hong: if you are not in health care, you can use your and 95 as long as it is not soiled or broken. a, surfaces are not thought to be that important in covid anymore. some people, if you are worried about that aspect, you keep a set of five masks and rotate them. put one at the end of the hanger, the coat rack, use the one at the front, and rotate it. that gives enough time to get rid of random viruses that might give you the cold or influenza. kristen: if you are a parent, when you insist your kid where an n95 all day in class? and if you were a teacher, would you insist kids cannot be in your classroom without an n95? dr. chin-hong: i would not insist, i would recommend. it is tough for kids to wear an 95 all day. it is hard for me. it is smelly and more uncomfortable.

k and 95 is more comfortable. if the kid is not comfortable wearing surgical masks, i would say try to double mask it. have fun with it. put a pattern on it. at least a surgical mask. it is not the only strategy. if they are vaccinated, i will feel better. if there is ventilation, i will feel better. multiple modalities, together with the mask, gives a sweet spot, not just one thing w. kristen: any new variant on the horizon we should be concerned about? dr. chin-hong: no, after the hullabaloo about the ia chi variant in france and everyone dismissed it, no new ones yet. hopefully we will have a few months in the u.s., and we can go back to some semblance of more normalcy after the surge. kristen: dr. peter chin-hong, thank you so much. always appreciate your insight. dr. chin-hong: thank you. kristen: coming up next, the

impact on schools after governor newsom unveiled his budget with an eye tow

kristen: governor newsom unveiled his budget, which includes more money for education. k-12 schools and community colleges will have $24 billion more to spend next year. is that enough? what are the challenges that need to be met to ensure kids can stay in school, have teachers to teach them and receive a quality education? joining us as the spokesperson for the california school boards association, troy flynt. nice. to have you here troy: nice to be here. kristen: your organization represents the interest of school boards and trustees. there are about 1000 school

boards in california. governor newsom has devoted more money in this budget to schools. is it enough to meet the challenges in schools now? troy: the money that gavin newsom has allocated to schools is considerable, and it is a substantial amount, particularly in the short-term. whether it will be enough after these one-time funds expire is an open question and we don't think it will be, because a lot of schools have staff, they have created new programs and services to meet those needs, and those needs are going to persist beyond the next six months or a year, because the impact of the pandemic is going to continue past that point. the question is once those one-time funds expire in a year or so, will we have to cut programs,", and get rid of staff? kristen: talk about the things that will require money. perhaps it was something new mandated that is not going away after this one-time money goes away. for example, i understand breakfast or lunch meals at

school. troy: sure. there are a whole host of programs grouped under one umbrella category called expanded learning. that could be anything from tutoring, two before school programs, afterschool programs, more extracurriculars, longer school days, or having school on weekends to try to recover from the learning lots. these have been valuable programs. as helpful as they have been, they have not been an f to blunt the neck -- been an f to blunt the negative impact and are struggling to react when mate in person instruction. kristen: let's talk about that. it came out a few days ago that the results from the first set of standardized tests kids took during the pandemic, and they were pretty bad, but i think less than 50% of california kids are meeting standards for their grade level in math and english. what needs to happen to reverse

that, to support this kids? troy: what needs to happen is an intense focus over a longer period of time. six months is not going to correct the damage done. this is going to be a generational issue, coping with the fallout from covid-19 and some of the measures taken in response. i know people don't like to hear that, but that is the reality. we need to focus really hard on those communities that suffer disproportionately. we saw that not only were scores down mostly across-the-board, but those communities which experienced the harshest impact from covid, particularly low income communities, african-american, and latino communities, had huge drops. these are groups that on the whole were far behind their peers to begin with. so it is really concerning to see backsliding and that gap widening. kristen: let's talk about that. if you need money in the long term, we talked about this one-time infusion, we have

surpluses shared, great, but funding in california schools is mostly tied to students being in class, you get a certain amount of money for each day if a student comes to class, but an roman seems to be declining in many school districts that need the money most. what to do about that? troy: it is important to note that an roman has been declining -- that aenroenroenroenroenroeno declining in years. we have an oral or population and because immigration has slowed. that has been compounded by the impact of covid-19 with some families going to private schools, some families homeschooling, and attendance down across-the-board. that is part of the reason why there is a bill being put forth in the legislature to change the way student funding works to the attendance bases, from the attendance basis, to an an roman based model, which means you are

funding based on the number of kids enrolled. so you are not punishing those students who are coming to school i decreasing funding as a result of those who are not attending school. kristen: some school districts, some even here in the bay area, are shutting down temporarily without reaching to the point where they don't have enough teachers to staff. under state law, they would lose money. an exception was made last year but no longer. do you think the legislature should provide an exception again for schools to make their own call as to whether they go remote, or do you think that is not necessary? troy: i think schools should certainly consult with their local county officials and their health officers. i think we are in a different situation than last year. for instance, over the holiday, we saw the governor's office come together at the states unions and all of the education management groups, like csp a,

which i represent. we came together on a statement, affirming our intended to keep schools open as long as possible, as long as we could safely do so. it is pretty rare you get the unions, management, and the governor all on the same page. that shows the level of commitment we have here. of course, circumstances have changed, and there are certain districts where more than 20% of their staff is calling out because they either were a close contact, or they tested positive themselves. at a certain point, it does become impractical, for unviable, to provide meaningful education for kids. in those cases, if the school has reached a point of last resort, it does make sense to take a temporary hiatus from in person learning. . kids should not be punished for that. i think it is a different scenario and schools are trying to move mountains to stay open. they would have closed probably a week ago if they were operating under the same premise and the same outlook as last year.

schools are doing everything they can to stay open as long as they can for kids. kristen: troy flynt, spokesperson for the california school board association, thank you so much for being here and sharing the challenges and initiatives being taken by school boards in california. appreciate it. coming up next, we will look at what is being called a national blood crisis. what is causing it and what we can do now. it involves free tickets to the super bowl. (son) fixed. no charge. ah, that's my son. aaytakes care his mama. fixed. no charge. ooh, what's up with granny's casserole? (mom) it's for after your uncle joe's funeral. my brother didn't have a life insurance policy. i hear there's a collection to help aunt adele. (mom) yeah. a funeral costs north of $9,000 these days. that's a hefty bill for family to pay if there's no life insurance check to help. wow. makes you think, doesn't it? (mom) which reminds me, i've been meaning to tell you, i got that 995 plan from colonial penn.

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is colonial penn's #1 most popular whole life insurance. now, don't forget, wear your good suit tonight. and please call about the 995 plan today, while it's on your mind, okay? call now for free information. (soft music) ♪ not only are we dealing with the pandemic, but the american red cross says we are in a blood crisis. joining us now is marsha antifa, a spokesperson for red cross public affairs. thank you for joining us. you are calling it a national blood crisis. just how bad is it? marsha: yes. thank you for having me on. it is something that your viewers should know about. the american red cross is facing a blood crisis.

there has been a 10% decline in donations since the pandemic began. there has also been a 62% drop in drives at schools and colleges. . you can imagine the donor turn out has plummeted. donor turnout and donors fluctuate all the time. but the need is constant. in fact, we have gotten down to a one day supply in recent weeks. that makes it very difficult for the red cross to supply hospitals and doctors have to make difficult decisions in order to decide who is going to get those blood products. kristen: when you say one day supply, are you talking about 1 -- talking about northern california? marsha: we are talking nationally. kristen: how about here? marsha: it is about the same. because of the pandemic, many people have not come in to donate. something else, we do have a staffing shortage just like every other area in the pandemic.

the red cross is looking to train people who will be paid. they are looking for volunteers to help staff those blood donation drives and those blood centers. kristen: i wonder if electric -- elective surgeries, does that buy you more time to procure blood? marsha: i imagine it does. that is really a question for the hospitals. we provide the blood to the hospitals. and it is their decision as to what types of applications they will use the blood for, what is considered urgent and that type of thing. but do keep in mind that every two seconds, someone in the united states needs blood. it is interesting you get asked about surgeries. there are daily needs for blood. for example, traumatic accidents, sickle cell patients, cancer patients, and even people in childbirth. kristen: and for a while, demand

was down a little bit during the early part of the pandemic when people were not going out or engaging in normal activities. that is back in full swing. i know the demand is back. can anyone donate for those who want to help the situation? talk about that. what about people who have tested positive and have recovered, can they donate? marcia: yes. i'm going to ask people to do this because there are many things that affect a little -- affect eligibility. people need to know that it is ok if you are vaccinated. it is just that the blood drive center will not -- will want to know what type of vaccine you had. all of your questions can be answered by going to readcrossblood.org. because there you can find out your eligibility, go through the process of giving blood, what it involves. the fact that our blood centers are safe, they are social distancing, there is masking. kristen: i don't want to cut you off, but we have 30 seconds.

i know you want to talk about the incentive you have. it has to do with the super bowl. tell us about it. marcia: go 49ers, right? just wanted to say in the past, the red cross has done this as well. if you are able to come in and donate during january, you will be entered in a drawing to get two tickets and a trip to the super bowl in los angeles. we hope that is enough of an incentive, but i know people out there also want to give with their hearts. and realize that there is a need. kristen: red cross --

joining us. on this interactive show.

we covered a lot of headlines including pfizer's plan for an omicron specific vaccine. world news tonight is coming up tonight, new covid cases in the u.s. soaring. a record 1.4 million cases reported in just a single day. hospitalizations and deaths on the rise. tonight, a hospital in los angeles declaring, quote, we are 100% broken and in complete disaster mode. in some places, health care workers who are covid-positive but who are asymptomatic are being told to come back to work. states battling to keep schools open and staffed. schools asking parents to step t asiignope ine tng this omicron wave? the cll