>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. dion: i'm dion lim and you are watching getting answers. we're live on we asked experts or questions every day at 3:00, taking interest in real-time. lots to get to today. we will look at the trash hauling giant. customers and the connections to the san francisco city hall corruption scandal. but first, we do hear an awful lot about the chaos and the staffing issues at hospitals. so let's take you to the ground floor and bring you dr. raven, an emergency doctor at usf and here to answer your covid

questions. ask those at facebook.com/ab c7news. i'm surprised he could escape the eer for a little bit. dr. raven: no problem. thanks for having me. dion: dr. patchy is nothing omicron will ultimately find just about everybody. how are people supposed to take that quote? are we supposed to think of this as the common cold? dr. raven: well, it's a really great question. i think we are probably starting to approach that. for some people, omicron is a little bit more than the common cold. but for most people, it's not presenting a severe enough illness where you would need to go to the hospital or anything like that. so it is unbelievable because it does evade our vaccines in terms of the infection component. a lot of people are getting it. and everybody i know that's been doing everything right doesn't

shield you from omicron, unfortunately. dion: that seems to be what some people are trying to say. laura lynn smith writes in to say it is mild, this omicron variant. chad saying good afternoon to everyone. i do want to ask you about this because you touched upon vaccinations. what two people who are fully vaccinated and perhaps boosted, do they do? do they keep going to restaurants? do they keep living life normally? i was shamed the other day when my friend said how dare you go try to eat? dr. raven: no, i don't think you need to be shamed for that. it's a lot about what your own personal risk tolerance is at this point and if you are an otherwise healthy person who is vaccinated and boosted and you go out to eat, there is a chance that you will get omicron. there might even be a good chance. but depending on when you were boosted -- if you were boosted in the last three months, it's less likely you would probably

get it. but if you are ok with that, you might get a little bit of a cold, you might get sicker, like the flu. if you have zero desire or zero risk tolerance, don't do that. but if you are ok with maybe getting this virus that everybody is getting, if you are vaccinated or boosted, otherwise healthy, i think you can go about your life and just be smart. dion: i do want to ask you a little bit about your experience in the emergency room because we've been hearing this term and awful lot, at capacity. and i do want to ask you what that means because it doesn't necessarily mean that the hospital is overrun with covid patients. dr. raven: that's right. so the hospital is not overrun with covid patients. we are not at the point where we were earlier in some of the other surges. what we are seeing is a much larger number of patients with

omicron, so much larger numbers than ever before of people either that are coming in for symptoms and testing positive or incidentally found to be positive. we test them because they're going to be hospitalized or for other reasons. so those numbers are quite large but we are not saying as much of very severe illness where we have to hospitalize these folks. many of them can go home with supportive care. but the hospitals, we do have covid patients, a number of them, even if you were hospitalized with covid. we still have to take isolation precautions. then we have all of the other patients coming into c is for medical problems. dion: i want to take a moment to debunk something, a comment from a user by matt shea says by telling people everyone is going to get it is a scare tactic. story. do you have a response to him?

dr. raven: i don't think it's a scare tactic. certainly not 100% of people are going to get it. but a lot of people are getting this virus and i don't think it has to feel scary. if you are otherwise healthy and vaccinated. for most people, this is a relatively mild illness in the age before covid, when all of us remember that sometimes we got sick. and so i think the reality is a huge, huge number of people are being infected with omicron and for most people, it's going to be ok. dion: a nice comment for you, dr., is from sicily ross, saying i like this lady. she's telling the truth. [laughter] i'm glad you are incurring favor with our audience. i do want to read a couple more questions, one coming in from daniel, asking is the booster stronger after a few months? dr. raven: stronger after a few months? no, the booster is weaker after

a few months. the first few months after he were boosted is when your antibodies are going to be the highest from covid. most of it is omicron right now. after that, you kind of go back to your baseline immunity the vaccine gives you. again, it does protect you against severe illness, hospitalization, and death. but what the vaccines don't do as well is they don't necessarily protect you against getting infected, period, and especially with omicron, is doing a very good job evading our vaccines in terms of infection. that is why so many people are contracting it. dion: going to take a moment to pave it to the issue of masks because it's something many of us have noticed come out and about in san francisco. we are seeing people, really across the state, wear a mask outdoors. with social distancing and being

in an outside setting, the risk is quite low. what is your recommendation? should people be wearing masks outside? dr. raven: i do not. my children are so used to wearing masks that sometimes they wear their masks outsides and i tell them there's no after mask mandate. it's ok. but if you are congregating in a really crowded outdoor space, maybe you would want to wear a mask. it's much lower risk because with the outdoors, it's very well ventilated. there's a lot of airflow. that's why we have not really thought of it today as a disease that's contracted outside. again, omicron might be a little different, but by and large, if you can keep your activities outdoors, you were going to be safer. dion: nice guideline to have. speaking of those masks, we have heard about these mask shortages , certainly at the store. you are and to shelves. if people cannot get those n95 masks, what is the next best kind?

are we talking about surgical or surgical and cloth? i see a lot of people doubling up now. dr. raven: yeah, so i think again, this is based on your risk tolerance and you're feeling like you do not want to get omicron under any circumstance. for most people, it's like many other viruses. i think n95 is probably not necessary if you are just an average person walking around town. if you can't get your hand on one, do not despair. i pay a lot of money to few k-n9595 my kids schools. if you are going to wear a cloth mask, i would double up or you can double up with a surgical mask. it offers very good protection. dion: ok, we have so many questions coming in. we are going to get to them in the commercial break, so stick around.

the conver

ok, here we go. dion: thank you all for staying with us. we are back with dr. maria raven, emergency dr. at ucsf. what we want to do this block is what you are seeing in the or and what life is like there at ucsf because bussey for doing what you do. it may not be easy with this influx of people coming in. dr. raven: yeah, thank you so much. i worked monday night and we are very, very busy. the city is actually up 20% prior years. it's very, very high the past week or two, a lot of ambulance traffic, lovesick patients

coming in, not necessarily for covid, but for lots of other things. our volumes are starting to go up in the emergency department and we are having a lot of people come in with covid symptoms that want to be tested because they can't get their hands on rapid tests anywhere else. so we do have a large number of people that are wondering if they have covid to get tested. the emergency department is not the best place to do that. i do understand people sometimes feel desperate. they can't get their hands on tests anywhere else. we do have to have covid positive patients unless acutely ill, wait outside because we have no space for them to wait. we have heat lamps and blankets and some providers that go outside to see patients there. that's what it is looking like right now. dion: that reminds me of school classroom shortages, where there are those annexed buildings that are stuck onto the main school building at school. dr. raven: that's right, that's right. dion: before i get to more

questions about the er, i want to get to kristin because she writes in with a somewhat serious question that i think she has been trying to get through to someone about. what is the reality about possible death for an immunocompromised person due to omicron? why don't we all wait until the surge is over before going back to school? she has an underlying condition, it sounds like and is quite worried. dr. raven: sure, and i hear that. i think that if you are immunocompromised, depending a lot of type of immunocompromised you are talking about, we do know that people who have had in organ transplant or on immunosuppressive medications or being treated for cancer with chemotherapy, those are serious conditions where you may not mount a significant antibody response even if you are vaccinated. so i do think if you are one of those high-risk people during this time, the vaccine will

probably be pretty protective for most people. you would want to be a little more cautious during this time and hold out for a couple more weeks until this surge passes. if you're concerned that you are not having a good response. if you are unvaccinated, you are at much higher risk for hospitalization. dion: great question. we appreciate you for trying to get your question answered. dr. raven: what i would say about school, though, is that the data show us from all of covid that staying in school is protective. kids have been less likely to get covid, at least prior to omicron, during other times of schooling. his actually been safer for kids to be in school. and i firmly believe that the benefits of being in school for kids outweighs any risk of transmission. kids are vaccinated. many are boosted. everyone is wearing ppe. we've just done a lot of harm to

our kids by closing schools. dion: we have covered that extensively, the mental health effects that these young people are dealing with on top of the stresses of being in school. so that makes so much sense. i do want to get back to what your experience has been like because you touched upon how their are people going to the er just to get tested because they feel stressed and i think that's something we can all relate to, feeling desperate to get these tests. oh what is the message you would like to send? when should people be going to the er when it's covid related? dr. raven: i think most people that come in wanting testing are not that sick. they have cold symptoms, some are sicker. the time to go to the emergency department is if you feel like you need acute medical care. we are here for you. we see everybody that comes to us and we are happy to see everybody. not everybody is that sick and that's ok. but if you do come for a test and you are not that sick, we

have a way to triage people. all the people that are acutely ill are seen first. what that means first is some of the patients waiting for a covered test aren't that sick but they end up waiting outside for a couple of hours, unfortunately. my son just tested positive and i didn't have any rapid tests left myself so i texted a bunch of friends and someone came through for me. but it's tough at there. unfortunately, that's the state our country is in. we don't have adequate access to rapid tests. it's really a shame. dion: and we're covering that tt extensively, as well, and how these workers are told if they are asymptomatic, you can indeed come to work. what are you hearing from other medical professionals? do they feel comfortable with this or is this more so a response to how serious things are and you've got to do what you've got to do to get people

care? dr. raven: ucsf, since we have high rates of vaccination, i would say most people aren't at critical enough staffing shortage that they would implement that new recommendation from the california department of public health. however, there are lots of hospitals in that situation where they cannot operate because they don't have the staffing. and my thought on that is, again, if you are vaccinated and boosted and you have covid but are asymptomatic and there are severe staffing shortages necessitating more people on duty, than it is fine for you to go to work with and n95. i know it's controversial but even before we had vaccines, just with our ppe, there were just minuscule numbers of provider to patient transmission documented. and so now not only do we have ppe that we know works, we also have vaccines or booster shots,

and so as long as we are smart about it, it's much safer to have those folks go back then to lead people without providers. dion: that would make a lot of sense. i know we only have a few more minutes but i wanted to let everyone on facebook know we see you. we are reading your questions and want to get to as many as possible. has there been any news on new variants and are they weaker than omicron? do you hear of any buzz? dr. raven: not really. there was some buzz about a delta cron variant but the reality is there will be another variant after omicron. it is difficult to predict but the natural sort of evolution of a virus is it wants to infect a lot more people, and by doing that, it doesn't want to make the people it infects to sick or kill them because then it can't replicate that's very -- replicate.

that's why the variants get milder and milder. this is unfortunately something we are going to have to learn to live with. dion: 60 seconds left, debbie is asking the question, i was boosted at the end of august. should i get another boost? dr. raven: well, great question, debbie. i think that depends. you were boosted long enough that your antibodies will start to go down. but i also think we have to think to ourselves, what is the endgame here? so if you are immunocompromised in a serious way, then i think it's reasonable to think about getting another boost. if you are an otherwise healthy person, and we have to come to terms with the fact that it's highly likely we are going to get this, but not going to get that sick. maybe we don't want to go and get boosted every three months, every six months. initial immunity we have from our vaccines, the original

vaccines, is pretty good. dion: dr. raven, you've been great. lots of information shared and many more questions to go. hopefully we see you again. good luck. dr. raven: thank you. really appreciate it. dion: coming up next, another investigation into the trash hauling giant. this one is overbilling customers and how it's connected to the san francisco city hall corrupti

dion: trash haulingntnt already admitted to overcharging san francisco residents by nearly $95 million. now there's no investigation over billing. this time, it's being tied to city hall corruption scandal. joining us to talk all about it is a senior reporter at the san francisco standard. before we get into it, we want to let everyone know our new partner focused on highlighting issues and stories with insightful reporting on all

things san francisco. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. dion: let's back up. for anyone who is not familiar, what happened back in march? >> well, last march, what happened was they admitted to overcharging san francisco customers something like $95 million in excessive rates for garbage collections. dion: and can you tell us a little bit more about how much alleged overbilling there is in this case this time around. >> we don't quite know yet. what we learned this week is that controllers office is investigating additional potential rebilling and one supervisor is convinced it can be as much as another 100 million dollars. but there's still an investigation that's ongoing and the controllers office is actually requesting recommendation from oncology, going as far back as 2016. kumasi: do you have info --dion:

do you have information as to have for a trickles down to the consumer? >> we don't know at this point. but last time with the 95 million dollars overcharging, that was part of a settlement with the city's attorney office that was returned to the consumer. these are dollars coming out of people's pockets that shouldn't have and were given back or at least they agreed to start giving them back as part of this settlement last time. dion: and in regards to recall it he themselves, being a reporter, it can be hard to get large companies on the horn responding. have they said anything about this latest incident? >> they have. what they've said is that they haven't seen an analysis at this point that shows there's been any additional overcharging. but what i think this has shown is that there are some problems with how the city is regulating how garbage rates are being set.

so recall it he has basically said it's committed to some but not all of the reforms to that process, that anything recommended by the city. dion: and in regards to the city, is that the corruption scandal you are referring to? >> so, the city has basically wrote -- proposed some reforms in response to issues that were exposed by the corruption scandal. so now there are several proposals on the table for how the city can move forward. they have its own, where they are basically, like i said, they would implement some but not all of the reforms. and they are asking voters to approve that downline. the city is continuing to other proposals. -- two other proposals. one of them is a middle ground that would include more than the other proposal. the other one is a more aggressive proposal that can basically potentially break up a long-standing monopoly on trash

collection that it had. dates back to voter approved law from 1932. dion: touching upon that, is there a second contender that is brewing and waiting in the wings >>? -- wings? >> not that i know of. it's the provider for every home in the city right now. i think it's raised ques raised about whether or not that should continue to be the case for its creeks. dion: 20 seconds left, kevin wants to know, is this part of a bigger story, perhaps elsewhere in the country or in the state of california? >> we don't know. quite frankly, though, recall that he has in unusual relationship with the city that is just not the status quo and other places. other counties put their garbage

contract out to bid and let other companies apply for work. san francisco doesn't do that. it's had the structure in place for something like 90 years now that gives for ecology its lucrative monopoly and really allowed it to return to this empire. dion: we would really like to see how this all develops. michael, many things to you. you just heard one story of this publication. there are 70 others we do want you to check out. let us know. we have more links on our website at abc7news.com. stay with us. (son) fixed. no charge. ah, that's my son. he always takes care of his mama. 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.

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joining us for this interactive show, getting answers. we will be with you every day at 3:00. see tonight, the major supreme court ruling against president biden and his vaccine mandates for large companies. in a 6-3 vote, the conservative justices blocking his mandate requiring large businesses to vaccinate employees. but the court allowing the vaccine mandate for health care workers at federally funded hospitals and clinics. 17 million health care workers. as tonight, the omicron variant spreads. the u.s. now averaging more than 761,000 new covid cases a day. tonight, the president sending military medical personnel to help across six of the states hardest hit. what doctors in those hospitals tonight are seeing right now. the extraordinary move from the justice department tonight. the most serious charges yet for the january 6th assault on the capitol. the founder of the oath keepers