>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc7news. >> hey, everybody. you are watching getting answers, live on abc seven. we asked experts -- we ask experts your questions in real time. must to get to today, including how police will be marching in uniform at the pride parade after all. today, we have mike from the sfpd pride alliance to talk about this sudden change. also, this bay area is going to be joining us to preview the this california pattern. it is her platform that touches on one significant issue we are interested in, mental health in the aapi community and the stigma that comes with it.

we want to welcome back special correspondent, dr. patel, addressing the covid news that has been coming out in the past 24 hours or so. thank you for joining us. we have to get an update. how are you feeling, how is your family feeling? you are all ravaged by covid. >> we wear. when i say ravaged, i want to be humble, we are fortunate because we were vaccinated and boosted so i was never really worried about getting severe illness. i was mostly worried about my daughter who is 13 months old. she had a little bit of protection. we all got through it but even though we are vaccinated, it was four painful days, felt like i swallowed a class, it was the worst sore throat i ever had, but we are good. even though it was five days of rescheduling everything around us from our work to our nanny, we got through it. dion: i love this, especially

because i'm going to ask, do you think being vaccinated and double boosted, all of that played a role, could your case have been so much worse? >> absolutely. there's two things i thought about in terms of the level of protection we had. number one, i recovered after three days, i started to feel better quickly. this is the same case of a lot of my colleagues to in -- colleagues who got infected. what is interesting, according to cdc guidelines, and this is something people need to pay attention to right now, is the cdc guidelines say that after day five after your symptoms, you are ok to put a mask on and go back outside. i was still testing positive on day five and six. had i not rapid tested and gone back to the hospital, i would have still been positive. i cleared the virus by day seven but it is important for people

to continue to test to make sure they are paying attention to whether they are still contagious. dion: really good advice, have extra tests on hand so you can regularly test continually. one of the headlines that we have in the bay area now, alameda county has brought back its indoor mask mandate. tell us about what the data shows and a you think other counties could be following suit or should they? dr. patel: the data does show we are seeing a rise in covid cases, hospitalizations. if we look at california itself, the bay area seems to be a hot spot. officials are calling this our sixth surge. alameda has this rate, high level of transmission. we heard from public health officials, they are seeing an uptick in hospitalizations. i do think that mask mandates

send an important signal about the severity of what is happening. it is not a big burden for people to go back to wearing masks. i hope people heed attention to that but it is almost less important that people are doing the indoor mask mandates at restaurants and businesses then paying attention to their own surroundings. people spread covid more impersonal settings, dinner parties, etc. i hope people are paying attention to the fact that they could be inadvertently hanging out with someone who could be positive. we have to not just rely on public mask mandates. dion: you mentioned private settings. do you know where you potentially and your got infected? dr. patel: we don't, that is the crazy part. after we started to get symptomatic, we had recently taken a flight, we all felt fine, we were wearing kn95's, my daughter wasn't, she was fine as well. i started calling one -- calling

everyone we have been around. i'm not sure where i got it. people should be expected to run into coronavirus in public. it would be a misnomer to say that it is magically gone because it is not. you have to do the best for your own protection. dion: it feels like everybody we know, at least somebody has gotten it and sometimes you don't know, you cannot say that it was a party, it can be as simple as one person you happen to encounter. i want to get to this question and i want to remind everyone, if you have questions, leave them at facebook.com/abc7news. i would like to speak about vaccinations because the headline yesterday was how young people, kids under five, will be able to get the shot soon. pfizer submitted data to the fda. take us through the steps and when the first shots could be rolling out, i heard by the end of the month according to the white house. dr. patel: that is the plan. the latest update i have gotten,

i want to say hot off the press but it is hot off the email threats, -- female threads, is the fda has dates scheduled to look at the data from the pfizer vaccine and see if we can get a shot authorized for those children under five. then the advisory committee with the cdc, these are experts on guidance and recommendations for vaccines, this is what they do. they have a meeting under and 17 and 18 and if the data looks good -- they have a meeting on june 17 and 18 and if the data looks good, shots could go into arms before july. dion: ashley bites into say that she sympathizes with you, she sympathizes with you, she knows it is a burden having family members who are sick. she says, i am pulling my kids out from their activities, now those businesses will be losing money, i will be driving to contra costa for shopping. it is this domino effect of

inconveniences along with the actual feeling sick. rhonda writes in to ask, i thought once the fever is gone, you are not contagious. can you debunk this? dr. patel: it would be nice to have a clinical indicator like that. if i were to make an educated statement, i would tell you once you are less likely to be shutting by coughing, you might be shutting out less viral load. if you are still testing positive, you may still be contagious. that is why it is important to rapid test if you are going to be an indoor gathering. i work at a hospital, that is why i rapid test often. dion: lynn wants to know, she is on day 10 of testing positive, you mentioned testing frequently. what is the longest you heard of it staying in the symptom -- the system? dr. patel: i have heard of people who rapid tested positive.

and having some demonic for beyond 10 days. -- have been symptomatic for beyond 10 days. people have tested positive for two to three weeks possibly without symptoms at all. which is why the recommendation is rapid testing. we have heard of people who have cleared it faster while taking paxlovid. it will be interesting to look at more data to see if people taking the antiviral are clearing the virus faster. people are less slightly to get severely ill or wind up in the hospital. dion: we only have about two minutes as a pediatrician and a father commodity plan to get more of asked? -- get laura vaxed? dr. patel: we do. we would not publicly recommend any vaccine if he would not give it to our own children. as a father, journalist,

pediatrician, i will be was the watching those fda meetings to look at the safety data, efficacy data, and what the community transmission looks like before i give her a vaccine. dion: these are responsible measures you have taken. before we go, there is the state at that covid hit kids exceptionally hard in 2021, the death rate, about six times greater than the typical flu. what are your thoughts? dr. patel: it reinforces the fact that we cannot keep calling covid another flu. people still do that. not only did it kill more kids, but even if we remove death, infected far more kids than influenza. there are also unpredictable long-term effects such as multi-inflammatory syndrome in children and long covid, which potentially has affected millions of children worldwide. it is more disruptive, more

unpredictable, and more annoying to our public health system than influenza. dion: i wish we could get to everyone. everyone who wrote in with their questions, we will try to get to them on monday. dr. patel, always a pleasure. i'm glad to hear you are feeling a little better. dr. patel: thank you. laura thank you as well. dion: just ahead, they will be marching after voll, san francisco police officers. they will be in uniform when the city hold its pride parade at the end of the month. we will talk to one of the major players in pushing through this change that helped put an end to the controversy. the show continues on abc 7.com and

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here we go. welcome back. after outcry, san francisco police bill be able to march in uniform in this year's pride parade. that decision was announced yesterday after the mayor, as a fire, and others said they would not participate if the decision to ban uniformed police officers from marching was not overturned. joining me to talk about the compromise between police and sf pride organizers is officer mike , vice president of the san francisco police pride alliance. i am so glad you are joining us today. >> thank you for having me, it is good to be on to talk about this decision and how it came to be. dion: you are zooming in with us out of uniform because you are off. thank you for your dedication. let's get to our first question. san francisco pride made the decision to not allow uniforms,

officers in uniform, back in 2020. there was no parade because of the pandemic so we did not get a lot of attention until this year. what was your reaction when you heard officers could not participate in uniform? >> i was pretty upset. i have marched in the pride parade for several years. it has always been a fun occasion for me. i got to do it with my friends' kids you identify as queer, gay, lesbian, and trans and it is a huge part of me being an out gay police officer. then saying we cannot much of uniform, it was upsetting, but the timing of it ended up working out well because we had this pandemic buffer to start these conversations and start talking about larger issues in the community and how we can get involved in how we can come up with a resolution moving

forward, so that was good. dion: you have a personal connection which i'll strive you in your mission to have these conversations that is interesting to hear that you have been having for the past couple years. this is not anything new. i want to talk about the proposal, which you spearheaded. what are the details? >> the proposal originally started with catherine winters. when the decision got made by the board, she took it on herself to be the direct liaison with the pride board, with suzanne and carolyn, to start these talks and she got the ball rolling back in 2020 in october and she has been doing a lot of the grunt work and we got together with them a couple months ago with help from the mayor's office, san francisco pride alliance, and the pride board. we talked about why they made

their decision to ban uniformed officers and why we want to be in uniform in the parade and we finally came to the resolution yesterday before the mayor made the announcement, it was great to see her face light up when we walked in together and told her that all of public service police, fire, and the sheriffs's will be marching together as one contingent in the parade as a unified presence, which is what pride is all about. the uniform concern, we compromised on the command staff and sheriff's department and fire department will be -- sorry, sheriff's department and police department will be in their formal class a uniforms which consist of the long coats so it covers any equipment or anything bulky. there will be uniformed officers marching in the parade in full

uniform for a security contingent, that will be from the sheriffs and police department and that is something have to do to make sure everyone is safe everybody else who is off-duty will be and polo shirts in pride t-shirts, so we are encouraging our members to wear their t-shirts and follows from the department instead of their uniforms if they are off-duty. dion: and express themselves how they would like to. mike: we can have neon shirts too. dion: my costume watching is always the fun part for sure. are you pleased with the compromise? were there some things you wish could have been addressed? or did you get most of what you want to accomplish? mike: i don't think anybody really got everything they wanted, so to speak. i am very pleased with where we are at right now. i think the outcome of this

decision that apply board and pride alliance in the first responders came to, it now sets us up to have these open conversations about larger issues and keep the ball rolling moving forward so that we can build this bigger community. one part of our compromise, the solution was we were going to be the rate to start up much bs lgbtq advisory forum with apply board and other members of the community. we are getting back on track to this larger issue of additional and community engagement. i am pleased with where we are happy with dion: you have to start somewhere and it is very complicated. at least the ball is rolling, like you said. i want to ask you, give us an idea of how pride parade have been handled in other cities in regard to uniformed police. san francisco was not the first 30 to attempt a ban on armed law-enforcement.

-- on uniformed law enforcement. mike: they have not made these big compromises. san diego, they can just rip polo split no uniforms. seattle and new york, all uniform law-enforcement stand -- uniformed bar enforcement is banned. san francisco is usually example, everybody wants to be like us, we lead the charge, so this is exciting. dion: we have been on the forefront of many decisions. how do you feel about pride in general, even after all of what you have been through? mike: i love pride, i'm excited too much in the parade. it is a great event. it is fun to see the kids' faces when you give them a sticker or a high-five. that is the best part for me,

seeing everybody get together and the smiles on people's faces. dion: coming together, celebrating, that is what it is all about. thank you for joining us. looking forward to continued private coverage and we will probably see you at the parade. mike: thank you for having me. dion: as we had to break, this bay area is going to be joining us, her platform is timely and addresses two main issues right now. we will hear from her when we return.

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with us. our next guest is using her platform to talk about the stigma of mental health especially in the asian american community. rakell -- raquel basco's mistake area and competing for the title of miss california. you would not know it by looking at her but she has a personal reason for talking about mental health.

welcome to the program. i know you are in rehearsals for this california. you must be so excited. >> i am excited to represent the bay area, this is my last pageant so it has been an honor and privilege to be here. dion: you have been competing for quite some time. what makes you stand out to me is how open you are in talking about mental health because it is a stigma for many asian families. my parents told me if i saw a psychologist, that would be for crazy people. which is why it is refreshing to hear you talk about your anxiety, your depression. can you tell me about what those years were like when you were younger? raquel: i think it is different now than it was when i was younger. i did not have the same access to mental health resources like today. with a lot of people in the entertainment business being transparent about getting help, i think it has changed the game and the stigma when it comes to

speaking to others and publicly about what you are going through. dion: what was that anxiety like? what were you depressed about and can you talk about the eating disorder that you had for quite some time? raquel: i did have an eating disorder, it took up a big part of my life. i am glad there are so many resources and education about what eating disorders can do to your body. i had no idea when i was 12 years old what i was doing to myself. i was fortunate to have the parents that i did to find the best resources in the bay area. dion: i advocated for the segment because i believe when you see someone who looks like you share something personal, it empowers that person perhaps to then share or seek help. what has the feedback been from people who learned what you have been through? raquel: i think it is sharing the message of hope that it is

ok to not be ok. i am proud that i can stand here today, wearing an evening gown, and not feel ashamed or like i have to make myself smaller to make other people feel more comfortable. a lot of my life, due to bullying and from abuse, i was not allowed to have a voice, i cannot speak out about the suffering i was going through. pageantry has been a great way to advocate for those who feel like they don't have the voice yet. dion: we are looking at her website and on the front page, it says, you are enough. it is important to hammer that home for young women so they understand that what they bring to the table come out gaps they offer the world, are enough. is it interesting to hear people's feedback? on the outside, using so put together like you have had it all, but that could not be further from the truth. raquel: i think it is humbling

to me because i feel like if i went up to 12-year-old me and was like, you're going to be competing in the pageant of your dreams as asian american and you are going to make an impact, you bug bounty here as much as anyone else, i wish i could tell her that. dion: now you have a chance to tell our audience. my last question because we are running out of time, if you win sunday, you will be the first filipina american woman to be at the helm of ms. california. what you want to achieve in the role? raquel: the first thing i would like to do, to celebrate it, most importantly, show more initiatives we are doing at the american foundation for suicide prevention, especially with adolescent children. the suicide rates have gone up since 2019 and i feel like with the training i have and the story i have, i can serve a need in our community. dion: do you plan to continue

this advocacy work? raquel: of course. dion: i love it. thank you for joining us. good luck to you, good luck to everyone participating. keep me posted on how it goes on sunday. and thank you everybody for joining us not only on air, but facebook.com/abc7news. i will read

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we will help get you the best result possible. ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show called getting answers. we will be here every weekday at 3:00 on air and livestreaming answering your questions. world news tonight is next. we appreciate you joining in. make sure to go to abc7news.com

or facebook.com/abc7news to ask your questions every day. we will try to get them to our tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. the tropical storm warnings right now. the system moving in on the u.s. tonight. also, the manhunt, the takedown after a convicted murder, authorities say killing five member of a family in their vacation home, and what we learned late toomd. first, the tropical storm warning posted for much of florida. potentially the first named of the season. damaging winds, up to a foot of rain, and rob marciano is in the storm zone. also tonight, news coming in at this hour about the escaped killer gunned down in a police shootout in texas. that convicted murder accused of killing phi member of a family, stealing their car. tonight, the takedown, and what we're learning the about the family. peter navarro