moving solution is abc 7 news. there. i'm kristen z. you're watching getting answers live on hulu live and wherever you stream. wetsxp your questions every day at three to get answers for in real time today the editor-in-chief of abc 7's media partner. the san francisco standard is back with another insightful report this time on a controversial amazon delivery hub that's being proposed. but first new word today that a vaccine for kids under five may be approved after all within the month maybe. this due to the return to the idea of a two-dose series, even though it was shown in trials to be not effective enough so joining us now to talk about this and other covid news is ucsf's chief of medicine dr. bob

walker dr. walker great to have you here. thank you. kristen. great to be here. alright, so before we get to the big news about the vaccines for kids a quick big picture is the omicron surge over for us. are we now back in a comfortable place? no, it's not over over over over improving tremendously. so cases are down about half in the bay area. the test positivity rate has started to fall. hospitalizations are only down by about 10% so if you think about the peak as being on top of a big mountain if we were a 10,000 feet, we're probably to 5,000 you still wouldn't want to fall off the mountain. so we've got a few weeks until we're down at the kind of low levels where we can really really relaxed. gotcha. okay, i did have her so i get that analogy. thank you very much, dr. walker. look for parents heads are spinning a little bit, you know for those with kids under five like six months to five years for whom there's currently no approved vaccine in the us, of

course, they had ray heard that it was going to be a two-shot dose and then it was three shots and then today two shots maybe back on the burner again with the fda urging pfizer to apply for emergency use authorization approval. so walk us through what is actually happening. yeah, i think the real issue i not that anybody thinks it's going to be a two-shot regimen the idea is that that they are thinking about approving the is now so you get your two shots into your kid now while we await the final data on the third shot. so the bottom line is, you know, because of the little kids they had to use overdoses and you kind of take a guess as to what you think the right doses and they went to a dose. that's that's quite small and it turned out when they looked at it the amount of antibodies you got from those two doses wasn't as high as we'd seen in older kids or in adults. and so they kind of went back to

the drawing board and said, all right, it's clear that we need a third dose. so that is the plan. they're studying now. they're studying a third dose. it's going to take a few more months for those studies to be done. in the debate today is about whether the fda based on the information they have so far whether there were any signals that two doses work partly and are completely safe and if they are. think they're thinking if we approve this now at least parents can. started on vaccinating their kids get them their first two doses while we await the information about the third dose, but i think the in game here is almost certainly going to be a three dose vaccine if you wait until the the studies are done on three doses and you don't get started even with the first dose until let's say, you know, a or june that delays things by two three four extra months. so that's the thinking it's complicated, but i you know to me i think the big question is going to be when they look at what they saw with the first two doses. is there any evidence that it was helpful in terms of

antibodies or preventing infections? even if you know it's not going to be ultimately the final dose got evidence that it was for the younger you. kids like six months to two years but maybe less so for the two to fours. exactly, right. so yeah for the six months to two years they did seem to have a pretty good antibody response, but for the two years to five years they had less of it. antibody response and so they basically said let's back and it's clear that we need more of a dose for those older kids. i doubt they'll approve it for the the six-month to two year range. i think if they do go forward, it will because because they look through all the data and say it looks perfectly safe in kids six months to to five years and there's enough evidence of some benefit even though it's partial benefit that and and the vaccines were completely safe in these young kids that believe that the third dose will be

helpful and get us to a point where the kids are really nicely vaccinated. there's no harm in getting started early and what it would do of course is accelerate. if ultimately you need three doses and you get started next month versus get started in april or may, you know, your kid will get vaccinated two or three months sooner and that will prevent many many thousands of infections. i wonder why that wasn't the thinking when the two dose trial results kind of first came out and they said, oh it's not as effective as we had. hope the pfizer trials. is it prompted by the omicron surge that the fda is like let's let's just go ahead with the two shots now. i think partly that and partly it shows a little bit of flexibility. why wasn't it considered because it's not the usual way the fda does its business it says we need to have we need to know the complete regimen and how many dostas and look at that and look at the trials and then approve it or not. approve it based on that. i think they're you know, they're looking at what is i think ultimately a more practical approach, you know, it sounds stupid but is obviously

self-evidently true. you can't give those three until you've given doses one and two, right? so and so if we know doses wanted to our helpful not as helpful as we want, but full and are completely safe. i think they just started thinking more about it. and yes, of course in the context of a huge number of infections particularly of young kids because they're the only group i guess they're immunosuppressed people but if you look at all our entire population, it's the only group at this point that can't be vaccinated everyone else who's not vaccinated mostly has made a choice not to be vaccinated. and of course if you're the parent of a young kid, you're probably quite anxious because you see infections being prevented in many other groups including older kids who've been vaccinated, but the young kids are having disproportionate numbers of infections with omicron. so i think it prompted them to think harder about it. okay, it seems before we came on air the fda set a meeting for february 15. correct me if i'm wrong to consider advisor's application here. so that's the case. when do you think the two dose

could be approved and given out to? first shot. well, i think you know, i i think the issue for i've spoken a couple of members of the committee, but the issue for february 15th, is is there any good evidence that the two doses help? i think there's no evidence that it helps approving it just on the hope that those three will be the magic formula. i think that's that's unlikely to happen. so if they do see that there's evidence that it helps and again no evidence. there's any harm it seems quite safe in the little kids then if they approve it. it'd probably be rolling out end of february very beginning of march. to forget you to get your first dose, but you should think about it as a three dose regimen you almost certainly will need to get three doses by the time everything's done. do that kids in this group should get as soon as the vaccine is approved for them. i would if i was the parent of a little kid based on what we know about the safety the vaccines the risk of omicron and un native kids and the possibility

that some of these kids have long-term complications of their covid so and but i'm basing that in part on the fact that i see the vaccines as nearly perfectly safe. you know, obviously some some kids will have reactions but what we've seen in in other groups of kids even the scare that you heard about cardiac complications of vaccinations. first of all tend to be in much older kids and second of all have almost always been mild very few led to hospitalizations. whereas we see a fair number of kids getting sick not a ton but enough getting sick. if we're me if there's evidence that you do get. an immune response to the two doses. i'm quite confident that the three doses are going to do the trick. if you said to me you can get it now or wait three or four months to get those number one. means you're going to wait six months or so until you have three. and your kid i would probably choose to get it now with my kid. okay, one mom. i talked to wants to know what are the side effects that we've

seen in the trials for those under five like any myocarditis at all any other side effects where you don't think so, it's a good it's a good question that it will be in large part with the fda is reviewing because they they of course if there's any evidence that the kids are having significant numbers of adverse effects, then you know with it's the rule one with vaccines do no harm you're talking about giving. giving something to people that are healthy. so you your threshold. to be incredibly low and at least from what i've seen and heard so far there doesn't seem to be the myocarditis problem that was seen in older and teenagers mostly boys even in that group, you know one in 20,000 mild almost no hospitalizations, but not seen in the little kids as far as as far as i know if there's any concerns about safety that they i'm sure the fda will kick this one down the road, but at least from what i've heard so far, they really have not been. to say mom also to know can you rule out the possibility of any

long-term effects be a fertility issues or anything else with regard to her very young one getting a can i you can't and i rule out the possibility. no, but it's not been seen now in vaccines used in hundreds of millions of people and billions of people around the world. there's not been any reported cases of long-term effects of vaccination for other vaccines. that weren't seen in the first couple of months and again if it were my kid, and you asked me the question are you worried about long-term complications? i would say yes from covid. far far more than i am about long-term complications from a vaccine. i don't think we know that that you know that a kid who has even a mild case of it will not have some consequence of that infection years out. i don't want to scare people because i think if it happens, it's got to be very rare, but that would be what i'd be more worried about than a long-term complication of about from a

vaccination. all right, dr. bob proctor do not go away when we come back. let's talk about the lifting of the masked mandate in some places here in the bay area. whether we are approaching endemic stage take it over to facebook live right now where i'm 53, but in my mind i'm still 35. that's why i take osteo bi-flex to keep my moving the way i was made to.

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creating the kitchen to match your taste has never been easier. discover floor and decor today! we are back with dr. bob walker the chair of ucsf's department of medicine dr. walker. we have some new data just out that shows just how effective the vaccine and even better the vaccine plus booster have been against hospitalization string omicron reich. can you give us those numbers? yeah, i tend to think of this in multiples of 10 that if you're compare someone if you're unvaccinated versus someone, who's that three shots, you have a hundred times lower

probability of getting very sick on the hospital and dying so so someone who's fully boosted 100 times lower. booster versus two shots is about 10 times lower. maybe it's seven or eight but it's an easy number to remember that going from from your second shot to your third about a 10 times lower. of a bad a bad outcome going from nothing to three shots about a hundred times lower of a bad outcome. so people have had three shots really are tremendously safe particularly with omicron since it's a little bit milder, but you know a tremendous a very large advantage if you go from two shots to three as well. i was going to say folks you do the math. but doctor has done the math. for so make your decisions based on that. randy has a question for you. he wants to know can dr. walker elaborate on risks of the variant ba2. has our thinking change on that? a little bit. so this is a subvariant of omicron. it's a few more mutations in on the ground. it's a little scary not so much because the varian itself is scary.

but because you know, you're hearing all of us say well, we're probably entering an endemic state, but it could change if there's another curveball the curveball being a new variant. this is not the one that's going to change it markedly. we what we know so far about this variant is it does not appear to be more severe than regular omicron. it does not appear to evade the immun. system either immune system from vaccines or from your infection any better than the original omicron. it does appear to be a little bit more infectious, which is amazing because omicron was amazingly infectious. so it's a little bit better at omicron that that at infecting people. we know that because in certain countries it's taking over for the original omicron and what that might mean is in the bay area, for example, if it takes off here rather than coming down the curve like that. it might be it slows down our from from the search, but it shouldn't fundamentally change our ability to get out of the surge because it's not of the evading the immunity any better than omicron did all right today

as you know, san francisco lifted its indoor masked man date for stable cohort. where people are vaccinated so we're talking about gyms offices, you know who's coming in and you know, they're vaccination status. will you unmasking those situations? do you feel comfortable? not quite yet, and i think i it's vaccinated and boosted. so so that to me is key again. i don't consider you to be fully vaccinated. whatever the cdc says i don't consider you'd be fully vaccinated if you haven't gotten three shots. so if the reason i wouldn't could i wouldn't do that yet is the cases are still quite high and they're down very rapidly and there's nothing i need to do in indoor spaces in the next two weeks that i can't wait a couple weeks for so if you tell them in a two three weeks when the case has come down to a much lower level and they're descending pretty quickly. and yeah, i'd be perfectly comfortable with that. i think if you're in a that you know and is stable and everybody's had three shots and you know that if somebody felt scrummy that morning they would stay home and get a test then

i'd feel comfortable being an indoor space unmasked but i think the cases still a little bit high to do that maybe if i was younger, i i might i'm old enough to be to feel so a little bit vulnerable. i'm gonna wait two or three weeks until i do that. so think california will be in a position to drop the mask mandate. expires february 15th, or do you think maybe it should be renewed? that's a close call. i think that's sort of right around the date that you'd be thinking about it and whether it's february 15th, or you wait another week or so. i think that's about the time where hopefully enough people will have immunity, hopefully. most from vaccines some from some from infection that the case rates will come down as if they continue to come down. i think it's plus or minus a week. so, you know since it's the messaging is tricky here. i think we'll probably be in an okay position to do it on february 15th. i think if to be a little safe, i think march 1st would be a little bit safer given that it's

it may not be down as low as we want it by february 15th, but pretty close, okay. carol wants to know would you recommend a vaccine for a child with a genetic disorder and autism? autism should have not muchuchuh do with it. it shouldn't it. it shouldn't put you at much greater risk for an infection. it doesn't put you at any rate or risk for a reaction to the to the vaccine the myth of other vaccines that they cause autism has been debunked up and down. so i've not worried about vaccines and kids with autism so i would treat a kid with autism actually advocate with autism. i would treat a kid with autism as being like just everyone else in terms of their the benefit of the vaccination. okay, no need for different rules. um denmark in norway just announced they're basically removing all restrictions signaling that they are moving into endemic mode, or they want to are we there yet both from a psychological standpoint, which i think we are but what about the scientific standpoint?

well, it's psychological standpoint is interesting. i don't think that's a slam dunk. i think you know the point that's been made recently is is that for many people that have taken this pandemic very seriously sort of getting your mind to really understand that the risk. quite yet, but in a couple of weeks, we'll be very low for people who've had three shots. that's a hard thing to get your mind around when it's been pickled with anxiety for a couple of years. so it will take a little while for all of us to get to get used to it. i don't think we're quite there. i mean same answer as before. i think the cases are too high. there's still too much virus around in the community, but at the curves continue in the direction, they're going in i think by the end of february we will be in a position where we can say, it's safe to be an indoor space. is it safe to have no masks on if you're not vaccinated it is not safe, but you've made that choice that i think it's a bad choice, but asking people who are fully vaccinated to be more careful in order to protect people who've made the choice not to be vaccinated at some

point is not rational and and even for people that are immunosuppressed their ability to they can wear an n95 and they will be quite safe. there's a monoclonal antibody cocktail that they can now take that lowers their risk. they are eligible for the drug pax levitt if they get infected that markedly lowers their risk of hospitalization. so think we're in a world where if you're not safe you've either made the choice not to be safe or if you're immunosuppressed. you can do things that take things relatively safe for you. dr. bob walker always great talking with you and getting your take on things. appreciate it. thank you. take care. all right coming up next we're going to talk to the san francisco standard about an amazon delivery hub that is being proposed in the

partnership with the brand new san francisco standard part of building a better bay area is highlighting those who are working toward the same mission we have here at abc 7 the

standards deep and insightful reporting on the city does just that and today we're talking about payment between mayor london breed's office and amazon to begin negotiating the terms for a proposed delivery hub. it's expected to face stiff opposition from labor unions and neighborhood groups. so joining us now to talk about the agreement and what it means for the city is san francisco standard editor in chief jonathan weber jonathan good to have you here. thank you. kristin. nice to be here. is this agreement between mayor breeds and amazon through a public records it was actually signed back in september but some top. city officials say they're just learning about it now and you're reporting you say. they're angry who is angry and why? well, aaron peskin our supervisor supervisor, aaron peskin is upset because he thinks the mayor's office should have been more transparent about their working with with amazon on this project supervisor. shaman walton is upset because he has doubts about whether that

facility is a good one for the neighborhood and he's also concerned about the lack of public input at the early stages of the process. so i think the upset has to do the mayor's office moving ahead. with this memorandum of understanding without letting anyone know about it. so do they welcome or not? welcome the i guess 500 jobs promised by amazon as part of this delivery hub. well, i think there's some skepticism about first of all the quality of those jobs amazon is does not. all that. well, not all those jobs are full-time jobs and then most importantly the labor unions which have a lot of cloud here in san francisco. they are antagonistic to amazon, which is a very anti-union company. so i anticipate there'll be a big fight about that about the union's wanting the city to require that facility be a union shop. and amazon is unlikely to agree to that so that it might well be

kind of a showdown right the amazon union kind of battle has been played out in different cities throughout the country and it's ongoing so what are they telling you in terms of how they plan to fight it? i guess the unions. well, the unions are not saying much actually about their specific tactics. they haven't even officially come out and said anything one way or the other about how they're going to respond to this facility. so there are a lot of tactical and strategic questions for the unions about how they go after amazon and so for the moment, they're playing their cards close to the vest, but i do anticipate that they will go pretty hard at this. okay. now is this type of agreement you were talking about the mou? typical and i guess staying quiet at the stage. is that typical? i'm sorry, kristen. i i missed your last but i know tech problems. the mou the agreement and it

being kind of i don't want to say secretive but you know on the quiet side in this early stage, is that typical or is that kind of a deal agreement? not typical? well, the the mou is is typical or fairly. in itself and that the city is just saying we will work with you to develop a project that we think will be in the interest of the city and so it's normal for the city to work with companies on those kinds of things. i think it's not so normal for an mou like this to be kind of on the quiet on the qt. i think that's less usual. i mean i think in many situations the project would not be controversial so that it would be less of an issue anyway, but but i do think that you know, it's a little bit for the mayor's office to have proceeded in exactly this fashion. so the mayor's office of economic and workforce development. they're the negotiating party. i guess responsible on behalf of the city. have you reached out to them? what are they telling you? yeah, they did not respond to our request for comments. so they have not really said

anything one way or the other. all right. well, i do appreciate you updating us jonathan about the story very interesting and keep us posted if you will as a develops. okay. thank you kristen. thank you. we have links to the san francisco standards other original reporting on our website abc 7 news.com and to watch more of their videos. check out our abc 7 bay area streaming tv app

joining. on this interactive show getting answers. we answer your questions today about scenes for children under five whether or not california is ready to unmask indoors and a controversial proposal for development from amazon in san francisco. we'll be here every weekday at 3 on air and on live stream

answering your questions world news. tonight is coming up next and i'll see you back here at 4. tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. pfizer now asking the fda to grant emergency use authorization to vaccinate america's youngest children. pfizer's new low dose vaccine for children 6 months to 5 years old. how soon could there be a decision? what we've learned tonight. more than 808,000 children testing positive for covid last week. tonight, this new storm. more than 20 states now on alert from colorado to texas to new york, and all of the northeast. heavy snow, dangerous ice and bitter cold. the storm coming in two rounds and ginger zee explains with this newest track tonight. the emergency evacuations. the massive fire at a fertilizer plant in north carolina. more than 6,000 people forced from their homes. firefighters pulling back more

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