>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions, this is abc 7 news. >> hi there. you are watching getting answers live on abc7 news. we answer your questions every day at 3:00 in real time. today we are counting down to game six of the nba finals as we hope the warriors bring home a championship tonight. our countdown clock is right there tracking of the time until network coverage kicks off. we have 2:29 left to go and coming up in 20 minutes, the warriors team director will help us get pumped up and maybe, maybe teach us a few moves. first, we are tackling covid news. an update on the case we have been following.

ucsf the department of medicine chair has spent the last 5.5 week sharing a personal journey with his wife -- when his wife tested positive after leaving a conference while traveling, he knew their experience could offer insight and perhaps lessons to others. they are joining us again today. nice to have both of you back. >> thank you. always a pleasure. >> katie, i think you are testing negative now. >> i am. >> are you used to living apart after all this time? >> we actually hang out together most of the time. since she started testing negative we had broken down isolation. i no longer deliver her meals outside her room like she is in prison. >> i get it. katie, i'll start with you. has been 5.5 weeks since you

tested positive. i asked how you were doing and he tweeted not great. so sorry to hear that. but explain how things are not great. >> well, i have lingering extreme fatigue. the bed is across the room and i'm going to make a beeline for it the minute we hang up. i'm extremely tired. it has really disrupted my circadian rhythm has gone caffluey. and i have this classic brain fog going on. so, i'm still pretty, you know, pretty much on the recovery, the road to recovery i hope. >> is this constant, the fatigue, the brain fog? >> it comes and goes. i'm a little better, i was waking up from naps exhausted and now i'm just waking up from

naps tired. but it, yeah, the morningstar ok -- the mornings are ok for a few hours. a lot of people say they can do one thing a day. mostly, it's brain work. it's when i have to actually think, which is a problem because i think for a living. >> i will give you a 30-second break. is this considered long covid? >> depends on the definition. some of the folks use a month of persistent symptoms and some use two. the w.h.o. uses two. she would not be there yet. in terms of the symptoms, they are pretty classic. the most common symptoms are extreme fatigue and this brain fog.

katie's also been having some headaches that are unusual for her. those are all pretty classic symptoms. other people had loss of taste and smell what she has not had but she does not enjoy food the same way that she did. i think the key thing is, you look at her and she looks ok. she is ok. and you would not know she has brain fog in a day-to-day discussion but she is an incredibly high energy and bright person and she will forget a word in a way she never would had before. she never needed to -- hit a wall at 2 p.m. in the afternoon and needed to take a nap. this is new. the symptoms are classic for long covid, whether you say she meets the definition is 4 to 8 weeks. >> a lot of questions are coming in. i'm going to ask you to be patient. we will try to get to those during the break. i still want to cover long covid, because we still seem to know so little about it.

some of it is a guessing game, how common is it? what percentage might get it? and is there classic profile who is more prone to it? >> the numbers are low over the map. it is a hard thing to study because a lot of people if you some have fatigue and aren't thinking as clearly as they would like. you have to separate out the normal rate of those things, but i think the best number i go with is about 20% of people who have covid will continue to have some meaningful symptom at least a month later and for many of them two ro three months later. and so the things we know, the risk factors, if your case of covid was worse the chances are greater. women are slightly higher rate of long covid than men. if you have been vaccinated, your chances of having long covid goes down. we thought by 50%. a recent study said only 15%. maybe not as protective as we had hoped. but those are the main risk

factors. we had hoped the use of the drug paxllovid might decrease long covid. katie had a rebound where she felt better and tested negative and turn positive again. and whether that may contribute to long covid is an open question. i think the best number to go with is one out of five people will continue to have symptoms. for a year, people are asking why you being careful with masks ? my answer is i will no longer have any fear i'll die od-- of covid. and now my fear is of long covid. now that she still feels crummy, it is more evidence that this is not nothing even if your case is not all that bad. >> i get what you're talking about. i will say when my daughter got it at age 18 my concern was not

that she would not survive it. it was really, what should be fatigue for the next 80 years of her life? will should be not quite as sharp? those are things that can have an impact on you in terms of your job, your studies, and just every facet of your life. given what i am hearing from you, i wonder if you think the costs and risks of long covid had not been emphasized perhaps enough in our collective messaging, which really focused more on keeping people out of the icu, not hospitalized, so great. we are good to go. things can go back to normal. what do you think? >> i think you're right. i think, you know, the risk in the early days that seeing refrigerated morgue truck outside a hospital and thousands of deaths a day, they are -- there are brutally honest and salient risks and everyone was

scared out of their wits about it. once it turns into what many people is a more chronic disease that may play itself out in a more subtle way over months and months, and you layer on top of that 2.5 years into this, everyone is tired and wanted to go away. it is easy to under emphasize that and it is a probably -- it is problematic of 20% get it in 80% don't. it is easy to minimize it. i think there is something that happens with post viral illnesses, there is no blood test that tells you you have it. you do not test positive anymore. many people sometimes minimize it because they do not think it is real. and looking at kai-- katie, it is very real even though we do not understand it very well. >> we are getting to a couple questions. so many of them. is there a blood test to determine if you've had covid in the past?

>> yes. you can take an antibody test that will tell you have had a case of covid. we know that 60% of americans at this point have had covid. there has been a tremendous amount of covid. whether that helps you. it is important to save someone just feels fatigued or their thinking is not as clear, it is important to see a doctor, because there are a lot of other reasons that can happen besides covid. in katie's case, you had covid, you felt fine before hand and you had the symptoms that continue on, i don't think, there is no ambiguity about what is going on. >> kaittie you are looking a little tired. oh, ok. >> you have to dissect that. often when i'm speaking she falls into a deep slumber. . >> i get that long married couple thing. is covid, long covid mainly caused from the first round of covid or is it still possible to

get it from the variants? >> there is no evidence yet that the rate of long covid is any different with the recent variants and omicron than delta or the original infection. certainly, the reason we do not understand -- someone says, what would be the one year outcome for someone with omicron? i have no idea. it has not been around a year. at this point, it is prudent to assume that risk of long covid has stayed stable all the way through. and that is a big deal because more and more people have gotten infected with omicron than got infected earlier. your risk of dying has gone way way down, but the risk of long covid has going -- go ne up. >> that is math. don't go away. we will continue to chat with you after a short break and during the break if you want to join us on facebook

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department of medicine chair dr. wachter and his wife who is testing negative 5.5 weeks after our testing positive. you went through a lot. he got better. you had a rebound. read symptoms again. and i still have some symptoms, including fatigue and brain fog. i wonder, katie, if you had to do it again, would you go on paxlovid again? >> no. >> referred to the possibility that maybe the rebound could be tied to long covid, increasing chances. do you both think, yes, i would do the same thing over again? >> it's such a good question. i -- we now have friends who have been following our story

and have decided not to take paxlovid. they're glad they didn't. they sweated it out. i don't know, there is no control. so i don't really know except maybe next time i get it i will try not taking it. but i have to say the night and day difference, it was immediate gratification, i felt so much better after a day. and i thought this was a miracle drug.a but i could have lived without that rebound. >> pfizer this week stopped its paxlovid trial for standard risk populations. why? was it because it was not effective, not safe? >> not that it was not safe. there was some benefit but it was not reaching statistical significance. i'm a little bit more, slightly more reluctant to prescribe it than before.

for katie, a healthy 64-year-old person who's fully vaccinated and fully boosted with two booster shots and i think if i got covid today i would be on the fence. i might very well not take it. if i was 75, no question. if i was on vaccinated, no question. if i had gotten two vaccine shots and had not gotten a booster, no question i would good because the risk of severe case of hospitalization and death is not trivial but has a lower risk person, i think you can make the argument we don't know whether it does anything to prevent or maybe this rebound encourages long covid. it's much more of a tossup. the question i thought you would ask is should she have taken her mask off eaten at the conference she was at? i think she would say no. she would be more careful. is that right, katie? >> what do you think? >> i think that's right. >> a rhetorical question, or

what? >> hello. >> people are weighing how careful and not careful to be. in retrospect, was it a good idea to be less careful of the conference? >> i am not dining inside again for a very long time. >> and you, of all people, having just recovered, might feel like, i can afford to do that. i got some immunity. is that not the case that you are "good" for 2-3 months? >> the old rule which i had, you have immunity superpowers, you had four vaccine shots and now an infection, -hybrid immunity, don't worry about it for 3-4 months. that is no longer true. there are plenty people who get reinfected in a month, and that is because each one of these mu variants is -- new variants is

better at infecting people. katie probably had ba.2, and the bug she might be exposed to would be ba.4 and it can get around the immunity to ba.2. the idea you had an infection and are good to go don't worry is no longer true. >> a month ago, it was hard to avoid because it was all around you really. how is our region doing now? have we plateaued? >> we flight choate, but it - plateaued, but a pretty terrible plateau. people thing, good, i can start resuming or take the mask off. that is a mistake. if you were being careful in the last few months because of the amount of covid that is around, it has plateaued at its highest level and it is not coming down to her that chances are it will not come down quickly, because now we will get this new ba4.5 variant which is more

infectious. the number of cases now is about the same as it was in january. if you look at the official numbers, it is one fourth the number of cases in january. now there is tons of home testing. katie's case, the city and county of san francisco does not know she exists as a covid person because it is not reported publicly. she tested it home. the number of cases is still high. i'd still be careful. >> real quickly, where do we go from here then? since we reopened, year ago yesterday, we've had three major waves at least. do you foresee any more? is it going to be a calm summer followed by more in the fall? can you predicted at this point? >> i think it is impossible to predict. what i can predict unfortunate is the what we're used to which is a surge, peak, comes down quickly and this will be not what it looks like. we may be stuck at a high level of cases through the next two months. and beyond that it really

depends on will there be another variant? we are on our fourth omicron sub variant and each one is nastier and better at infecting people than the one before. if this is the last one, which rudy great, it should come down over the summer and we will have a pretty good fall. if there is a new variant, all bets are off and there is no way to predict that. >> we're out of time. katie, i hope your long covid symptoms improve before next month, because i imagine you will be having a book tour, perhaps? >> thank you so much for bringing that up. right, exactly. >> katie has a novel that is coming out and it is spectacular. >> my gosh. "the boys." >> we have to get you want to talk about that. you rest up. continue to take good care of her and you are in good hands. thank you so much. >> be well. >> coming up next, we are counting down to game six of the nba finals tonight.

our countdown clock shows 2:10 until network coverage begins. the warriors -- team

>> dub nation, are you ready? tonight is the night the warriors can bring home another championship. our countdown clock at the bottom of your screen shows we have two hours and 7 minutes to go until network coverage for game six kicks off right here. before that the warriors dance team is getting us into the spirit. ♪ this video was taken yesterday. when the dubs dancers help united airlines through a pep rally at sfo. the here playing a major role tonight for the watch party which is sold out. joining us now is the warriors dance team director sabrina ellison.

hi. >> hi, thanks for having me. >> you guys are going to get a lot of the spotlight tonight at the watch party. you have several different squads, right? >> we have five entertainment teams part of the warriors family. i've been blessed to oversee them. >> you have kids, seniors? >> we have everything. we have the junior jam which is our kids, and they do hip-hop style performances and then we have the traditional all female warriors dance team that does jazz to hip-hop and broadway. we have a collaboration called t he blue crew, male hip-hop sc quad, that we bring in for 15 home games. and we have our jsbreaker, break dancers that bring our street flare into the arena. and then we have our senior team. they are absolute fan favorites. our crowd goes wild every time

they perform. >> perhaps i might be interested in auditioning. i am interested in auditioning. >> you have to be 55 and older. the oldest still does the splits. >> when did the idea for this come about? love it. [ >> we have always had our traditional warriors dance team. we are in the bay area, there is so much creativity and like the bay area is known for artistry, right. i'm really blessed under the warriors to be able to like expand our dance program, and so the warriors are ever-changing and they want to be the very best. so, after the traditional team in the junior dance squad, we brought in our breakers and they wanted more for our fan base and then we brought in our partnered

with classics, our senior team and then they were super hit. brought in the blue crew. >> for all of these roofs, they will be at the watch party tonight. you're not traveling with the team but tell me what they are going to do tonight and how they are getting ready. >>w e're sold out. we are super excited. this is a big watch party pure we have two of five teams, the warriors dance team, the gold squad and the blue crew, the male hip-hop squad. little secret, our guys are bringing it back old-school, a boy band action and then our dance squad will be performing to a bay area artist and they are excited, they are pumped. we're excited to be out there with our fan base tonight. >> are playoff and finals different from the regular season from a performance standpoint? >> oh, absolutely. we are trying to be innovative and put everything out there on court that's fan-centric but when you're in the playoffs like the players you have to hit it

hard, you got a put your best foot forward. we have lighting, different themes that we do throughout the playoff run. always wanting to engage our fan base and bring that energy. >> because you are like the seventh man on the court so to speak. you help bring the energy that gets the team going when they are playing at home. in this case you will get the fans going. if the warriors win it all, do the dancers get anything special? >> we get to be part of the special event that happens, call the t event. we do want to say it out loud. we have been really lucky. our organization is so good to all of the employees from full-time to the dancers. they have also received championship rings. very spoiled and they take care of all of us. >> a ring. i'm tempted. in case i decide to audition, do you want to show me a move in cfi might have a shot here -- see if i might have a shot here?

>> absolutely we take our arm and whip it to the side. one, two, from here, pump up thre e, four. want to try that again? with me. 5, 6, 7,8 whip it. pump it, 3.4, >> i used the wrong. now i am pumped, i am excited. thank you so much. by the way, abc7 news is going to be running the game tonight, keep it right here. thank you so much join us on facebook live as

thanks for joining us today. don't forget, there are oh, two

hours to go before a network coverage of game six begins right here on abc7 news. tonight, the dramatic testimony before the american people. what really happened behind the scenes on january 6th? the very heated phone call between president trump and vice president mike pence that very morning. tonight, the testimony from eye vaca trump and others. the call in the oval office. what the former president said to mike pence what he called him. the january 6th committee revealing the former president's pressure campaign on pence, calling on him to overturn the election, declaring trump the winner. or to send it back to the states. what pence repeatedly told the former president leading up to january 6th. hours later on that day, the violence under way at the capitol. the president informed of it all and still, the tweet trump sent out on mike pence, that he didn't have the courage. and what the violent mob can then be heard