we are asking experts in your questions to get you answers in real time. how would you like to paid to stay home to avoid catching covid? the right to recover program has been expanded and we will discuss how it works. the city of burlington will charge businesses who have outdoor spaces and businesses say they may go out of business. new insight into how covid-19

can affect your brain. scientists are getting to the bottom of the causes of covid brain fog. joining us is a neurologist. thank you for your time. >> thank you for having me. let us explain by what we mean by covid fog? it is a colloquial term. we do not have a medical diagnosis yet because the field of medicine has not caught up. this comes back, p p p p p p p p coming up with names or words or with processing speed, fill in their brain is working slower than he used to. what everyone is saying that my brain did not used to work like this. i cannot function at work like i used to.

>> after hearing experie from people, you set out to do scientific research about this. what did you do and what did you find? >> we are part of a much larger research effort. i am particularly interested in the brain fog people are experiencing. we enrolled people in our study who were reporting cognitive changes after covid or those who said that they have had covid and no cognitive changes. we did have dry sessions of these people and studies and cognitive tests. we asked these individuals if they were willing to do a spinal tap. over the half of the people did yes, we compared the spinal fluid. compared it to those who had cognitive changes and those who did not. what we found was that there was a lot of abnormality.

37% who had cognitive cages after covid had abnormalities in their spinal fluid compared to -- 77 percent who had cognitive changes after covid had abnormalities in their spinal fluid. what we are noticing is that general signs in the brain fluid are pointing to abnormalities in the immune system or inflammatory response. some abnormalities that suggest elevated inflammation in the brain, other abnormalities that may suggest systemic immune activation. or maybe even inflammation within the brain compartment. we need to do more research. >> is it a relationship or a direct causal line? between the changes and impairments that people are reporting? >> it is an association.

in this group they are having a lot more of the cognitive changes and abnormalities in fluid. we are not saying that in the group who have the cognitive changes. we need to do longer studies so we can say that those who have cognitive changes, that is caused by these abnormalities. we are not quite there yet. >> i wonder if there any differences in the age range? maybe young people were more likely to -- less likely to have the formalities? >> i am both a scientist and i am a doctor. i see patients in my clinic. i can tell you i have seen 17-year-olds, 20-year-olds, 80-year-olds, i am seeing this cognitive syndrome in all ages. i think it can impact anyone. one of the things we were wondering is are there people who are more at risk?

we asked all of the individuals, do you have any of the risk factors we think could be associated with cognitive changes like high blood pressure or diabetes? or other risk factors like learning disabilities? we found more of these risk factors in the group of people with cognitive changes. suggesting that there are more vulnerable to getting this cognitive changes. >> what about any potential relationships between how serious your bout with covid was to how much her brain changed? >-- your brain changed? >> these people had milder infections. all of the individuals we included in this paper were never hospitalized for covid. we did not even include people who had a severe disease who were in the hospital getting oxygen or were intubated. one of the things people do not

realize is this could affect people who are not that sick with it. some people were more sick in the mild range but we need to do more work to understand how severity associates with this. >> i wonder if you have been able to notice if these conditions update, does it go away? is it permanent? >> i will give you my observations. i can tell you that some people do spontaneously improve and go back to normal. this tends to happen over the course of a month's. other people who have the cognitive changes may not improve but still largely have an improved over the years -- but have improved over the years. no one can sports overtime. -- no one gets worse over time. >> a milder variant such as

omicron may be less likely to call because along covid or brain changes? >> i have heard of cases of this rainbrain fogogogogogog omicron. this was big the big surges. vaccines were not available when these people contracted covid. the impact of vaccination status, whether that protects people to some extent. >> now that we have a vaccine, if they get the vaccine, could that result the issue or help? >> it is unclear. we do not know. we need to do the science to understand that more. >> how about treatment?

are there medicines out there to treat this? >> until we understand the mechanisms, it is hard for us to give treatments for this. prior to the pandemic, i asserted hiv which causes cognitive changes -- studied hiv which causes cognitive changes. in that field, none of the medications we have tried have reversed those cognitive changes. i have heard of people trying certain medications or recommending things. i also know many patients who have gotten worse and they feel like there cognitive symptoms have worsened. anything that is tried is experimental and i have not heard of anything associated with success. >> what about prevention? >> we might have passed the peak, but we are still within the omicron surge. get vaccinated, if you are

vaccinated, get boosted. wear a mask that fits tightly around her nose. you want t-- wear a mask tha-- t tightly around your nose. it is affecting young, healthy people. we do not want this to be you. >> thank you. we appreciate you sharing the results of your study. keep us posted. coming up next, san francisco n supervisor is joining us to talk about a program that pays work

i am really sorry. welcome back. san francisco officials are expanding a program designed to

discourage people with covid to go to work. it is called the right to recovery program and it will pay you $1000 to quarantine 10 days. joining is the author of the legislation. thank you for joining us. this is an extension of a two-year-old program? >> it is almost two years old. we inserted it almost six months into the pandemic when we almost realized that many of the people who were catching the illness were low-wage workers who did not have accumulated sick time and ways to make ends meet if they stayed home from work. we had credit the program to help them do so. >> you, the city, dedicated $5.5 million more to this. it covers people through the month of june.

what does it offer and who is eligible? >> it is eligible to any san franciscan who tests positive for covid. who self certifies that they do not have the means to stay home and quarantine. they do not have a chelated sick leave or a savings account or any other -- accumulated sick leave or savings account or any other sick day. they can call a phone number, 628- there'll be some way to provide proof that you have tested positive. it is pretty easy after that. there will be $1000 sent to you to help you make ends meet. >> could you use that to take care of a sick family member?

>> you are eligible if it is for yourself or if you have a minor or a child who has to stay home from school and you have to be there with them. >> are you thinking of independent contractors or those who do not get regular sick days? >> yes, although you would be surprised how many people should have sick leave and employers do not provide it or because this crisis has been so long, they used all of their sick leave already and getting reinfected or stayed home before to take care of their child and used up all of their sick leave. they have to quarantine themselves. there are countless different situations. people who really need this assistance. this is what this program is meant to do. it is to help you get by and be safe. >> you mentioned proof, insert

an income threshold over which you make too much money? >> there is not. we purposefully made this program really easy to use, really low barriers to entry. what we want people to do is be thoughtful, if you can make ends meet, there is a limited amount of money and there are thousands of san franciscans who are having the worst time of their lives. if you have enough money to get by, do not access the money in this program. save it for the people who really need it. if you are saying that, if you are still coming out asking for the money, we assume you needed and we are sending it your way. >> there is some honesty policy at work. where is the money coming from? >> we have had this program for a long time.

this is just the court amount of money we have allocated to this program. about a million dollars already. we have been evaluating, we have been evaluating who is accessing the program and the vast majority of people are coming from low income neighborhoods. they are immigrant workers, and individuals of color. we believe the program is working on this honesty possible. -- princip we have a ton of help from the federal government last you to help with covid response. part of the money is from those funds. >> if you go back to work five days, are you only eligible

for $500? >> you can still get the 1000. we set up the program so it is not hard to administer for the city. we are not 1 checking to see if your tongue the truth, we are asking if this is an emergency. if you do not need this money, please do not access it. there are plenty of people who need it. >> businesses say that their biggest challenge is staffing. any concern that perhaps this will make it even harder for businesses to have staff if for example, no longer infectious workers choose to stay home longer? >> it is -- if you are staying home for 10 days, it is minimum wage. there is the small risk if somebody is a minimum wage worker. many people do not like to

quarantine for 10 days. i just got off of my quarantine and i cannot wait two outside. -- to go outside. many more people will make more money going to work and did not want to stay home. they want to be safe and recover. we have had this program in place since six months into the pandemic. it works and we are grateful and grateful to the mayor. >> he will always be in our hearts. >> i want to think the mayor for joining with me and prioritizing this program. it has been really successful and it has helped san franciscans at a time where help is hard to come by. >> the state covid sick leave

expired, the extra days, this is therefore people. could you extend this again if we still need it in june? >> this program has been so popular it is a clearly supported -- it is clearly supported by the mayor. it supported an extra part of funds to this program when we ran out last time around. we are going to monitor this program weekly. if it continues to function and we still need it, we will add more money during the budget process this year in june. >> how can people find out about the program? >> it is 628-217-6101. >> i should not let you go

without asking, did you just recover from covid? >> yes. my whole family was hit by it. we just recovered and it is omicron. it is getting all of us. i did not access the money because i did not need it. i want to say but for those who do. >> you are vaccinated and boosted? i mild case -- a mild -- a mild- >> yes, all of the above. >> thank you, good seeing you. >> thank you. >> bars and restaurants will have to pay up if they want to keep

>> as the omicron. guy's who pulled outdoor dining, the city of burlingame is moving to charge fees related to park

lets. to discuss the fees is a business owner. i see they are coming to us from outside of her daily, is that your -- your deli deli deli deli parklet? >> they want to charge $250 month cleaning fee. that is to clean out let. >> that is about the 1500 a year in rent isss but why is the 254 cleaning not necessary?

-- $2050 for cleaning not necessary? from food costs and staffing shortages, the money has to come from somewhere. we do not have that kind of money. the pandemic has taken away extra business and catering. it is a thing we have to decide. do we cut costs somewhere else or do we take away the parklette ? people want to eat outside. >> especially omicron has brought people back outside again. i ask have you talked to others around you, fellow business members to ask if they're going to dismember the parklettes? >> the president of the business

district here says he put export if people will dismember them. people have built up is really fancy parklettes. the cost to build and tear tear people may cut costs and keep them up. our business has decided not build out. we have the barriers here and put chairs up. we are not in a bad situation. we will lose sales for sure. >> for a restaurant right now, if you do not have the parklette , could you even have enough business to sustain the business? >> right now, with the it is unlikely. >> do you think it is the parklettes because they take up what used to be parking spaces? they lose the parking revenue. is this a necessary part of

making it up? >> i think that is what the aim is and i understand that they are losing costs of the parking spaces. you are going to loose businesses and that is bad for revenue for the county and the state as well. texas and without businesses, i do not want to see empty storefronts -- taxes businesses, i didn't want to see early storefronts. >> burlingame is not cheap. have the landlord been cutting you a break? >> a lot have not. we have a great landlord so we did get a break for the pandemic in the beginning. most people i spoke to on the street did not. >> what are you asking the city of burlingame to do? >> we would like to see no cleaning fees. i am ok with paying a permanent fee and we would like to leave

it up as a business owners to clean the parklettes. >> you guys make the best sandwiches, i hope that you will keep going. i should thank you for your time. we have reached out to the mayor and vice mayor to talk about this issue, we have not heard back from them. we will have the conversation on other time.

interactive show, getting answers today, we answered your questions about covert brain fog with new research. -- covid brain fog research and the program that pays people to stay home if they

have covid, and we spoke with business owners out of burlingame. world news tonight, the crisis between yugs are and ukraine. president biden putting thousands of u.s. forces on height bd alert for possible rapid deployment to the region. the pentagon putting 8,500 troops on alert to potentially bolster nato forces in the region. more russian troops massing on ukraine's border. and late today, president biden speaking with european allies for more than an hour. what we've now learned tonight and martha raddatz with late reporting. the omicron surge and what they're now seeing tonight. where in the country we could be seeing a turning point. and authorities tonight now urging caution, with nearly 700,000 new cases still a day. nearly 2,000 deaths per day. and in new york city tonight, sarah palin here for a trial, the judge revealing she has

tested positive for