tv ABC7 News Getting Answers ABC July 5, 2022 3:00pm-3:30pm PDT
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>> this is abc 7 news. kristen: hi there. you're watching getting answers, where we ask experts every day at 3:00 to get answers for you in real time. today, calls are growing louder for airlines to be held accountable for all the cancellations and delays we have seen. joining us shortly is a congressman joining the chorus of calls for the federal government to take immediate action including severe fines for allen's. also, it is not a secret that most reits are named after men, but did you know that in san francisco there are a lot of streets named after women.
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it is a fascinating story. first we want to talk about the coronavirus because the omicron subvariants have become dominant and previous immunity is not really keeping people from getting reinfected. sometimes more than once. so what can we do? stanford infectious disease doctor has been looking into it and he joins us now. also to talk about what we can do if we are getting these variants. great to have you here. >> thanks for having me. kristen: can we still for the most art count on hybrid immunity protecting us? >> the key question is what we mean by protecting us. if we are talking about protecting us from getting infected at all, that is becoming less and less true.
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i got omicron in early january and that was my first time getting covid. the second time i got it was in may. based on what was most likely spreading at that time i got ba.1 in early january and ba.2 in late may. we have seen people get reinfected from may into late june. secretary becerra is an example of this. so, that's the problem. what we do have is people are still well protected against getting really sick, ending up on a ventilator or dying, especially if they are not having very severely immuno compromising positions. but many people do have that. kristen: but you are fully vaccinated i assume and boosted. and i imagine you probably wear your mask in most places and are very careful. >> yes. kristen: so what does that suggest to you, your own
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experience of having it twice despite all that? >> well, i know from both of my exposures, it was someone within the home who got first, then i got sick. i think the problem is you can do everything as an individual. you can be as careful as you need to be. but fundamentally unless you live alone and don't have anyone else around you, you are only as safe as those in your immediate circle. so one of the reasons i am out -- this has been the experience since early 2020. when i worked at harvard, most of the patients i saw were sick from family members and their home. if you look at other countries who took more intensive measures, they had people isolating in areas outside of the home. here, even though we had set up isolation centers in different states, most people still wanted to do that at home. but it is hard to prevent
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infection in the home unless you are taking certain preemptive measures such as getting really good ventilation, filtration devices, and putting in the measures before transmission has already happened, which can be tough if someone is not showing symptoms when they are contagious. kristen: so are you suggesting that every american household dget air filtration devices that will clean the air, so if someone comes home with it, you won't get it? >> well, this is a complicated question. remember, air filtration and ventilation also depends on the size of your home. the cubic footage, the volume of the space you are occupying, the number of windows you have open, if people can isolate or not. my research study that will be starting soon is essentially looking at crowded homes where w e input these box fans with filters on them and essentially try and create an increased
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number of air changes per hour. so where the air is getting recirculated input through a filter. this will be for homes where someone has covid and family members do not yet. what we want to see if that can reduce the amount of transmission to other fruman members. are own conversation with federal officials, one of the things they wanted to see was how can you in the real world setting use these ventilation filtration devices to reduce transmission. i'm hoping to study that and tested out. it is complicated but we need to look into this. kristen: cannot be done fairly economically? >> it can be. one of my colleagues has done this in san francisco at his child's school. basically putting together box fans that are $30 and then you get altars that are another $30, you put it on the box fan. on our team we have professors of engineering at standard who are ventilation filtration experts and you can do this for a low-cost.
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this is why we keep beating on this drum. if we got federal and state officials, governors, really putting their money down here to do this, we could have this done quickly. so it can be done economically. it is just a matter of doing it and then measuring transmission, seeing how much we can get it down. the goal is not to eliminate covid. elimination has not worked anywhere. but we can avoid massive surges of infection which is what is so disruptive, and the reason even if you take all these precautionary measures, someone around you will get infected at some point and no one is wearing a mask all day long. you take it off to eat, sleep, you are presumably not wearing it in your house at all times. during these high incident periods, anyone can get sick. kristen: especially would be a four nba five becoming -- because it can reinfected more
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easily, will we not see that dip we usually see after a surge? are we going to stay into a plateau level? >> i think that is very possible. it feels like the omicron wave has been this continuous wave where we get little bit of a lull. many about us make the same point about we need to figure out a way to clean the air more effectively because all the variouss are traveling -- all the variant are traveling in the same route. -- that's different from now, which is reinfection's. for myself, i had to be out of work even the second time. someone had to cover me. especially where you need someone else to fill in for you on short notice, that meant someone else had to leave the research lab. these are big disruptions. two weeks leader i was at
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another hospital i work at and normally we have five people. we were down to two people because a lot of the staff had covid. this is a big problem. seeing we are getting another wave right now is very concerning. kristen: thank you so much for the -- for all of that information and sharing your personal experience. >> thanks for having me. kristen: and what he was saying about labor shortages caused by covid, we're seeing that to some extent with the aviation industry. when we come back, we will talk to a
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kristen: calls are growing louder for airlines to be held accountable for the chaos in the sky and at airports over the summer. over the fourth of july weekend, airlines canceled more than 2200 flights and delayed 25,000 flights. americans are losing their patience. when pete buttigieg tweeted a resource page two passengers, people tweeted at him, asking him to focus on solving the problem. thank you so much for making the time. >> thank you for having me. kristen: this is an important conversation but before we get to that, i have to ask you to address the many shootings this weekend. gun violence. 220 people debt. 11 -- people dead. 11 mass shootings. what is your reaction? >> it is horrific.
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it is literally taking away our freedoms on independence day. we need more legislation. we have passed a bipartisan bill that expanded background checks, but frankly, why should people under 21 have these militarily -- have these military style weapons. why should anyone have them? kristen: thank you. that is another issue we have to dive into another time. but this weekend was also frustrating for travelers. they saw their vacation shortened, money wasted, moments with family missed. do you agree with the angry people say the government is not doing nearly enough? >> i do. the anger is there in the united states congress. president biden dealt with this brilliantly. he had regulations, there were fines for airlines they did not fill those regulations.
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and secretary buttigieg has just dropped the ball. there is no regulation, there are no fines, and that is why there is a consensus among a lot in congress that there needs to be more. kristen: you did so in a letter. you and other lawmakers sent this letter to secretary buttigieg. what are you asking him to do? massive fines, or using the law and the tools at his disposal to enforce some actions? what are you asking for? >> what we're cong for him to do is learn what president obama did. unfair business practices law, he has the authority that if an airline is selling you a ticket, they are representing the are going to have a flight and they cannot just cancel it. that is an unfair, misleading business practice, and he can set a consequence for that. that is what president obama did
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in his two terms. and he has refused to invoke that authority, and i don't understand why. he is a very smart individual, his heart is in the right place, but it has been in an incompetent response, frankly. kristen: senator sanders is pushing for massive fines per passenger negatively affected. how much money are we talking about? >> the details i will leave to the department of transportation. that is not for me to say. but at least invoke the statute and set something. the average finend predeas aend0 per passenger. but we are just saying, actual legislation that will make an impact. kristen: look, the other problem is fuzziness. i think you can get a refund if there are really long delays. i think a lot of that is not well defined though.
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also if they cancel you, but often they will cancel you and rebook you on something else days from now, and you feel like you have no recourse. >> you are absolutely right. a lot of people do not want the refund. beacon cost someone a day on work. what if it is someone's birthday, they are going to visit a sick relative, what if it is a special holiday weekend? people are entitled to expect that the airline fulfilled her obligation. everyone understands if there is inclement weather, if there are extenuating circumstances. but here you have airlines knowing they are going to have shortages just canceling. it's unacceptable. kristen: they are siding a lot of covid illnesses, people being sick. do you think that is something they should be able to factor in and account for? >> they should, and the congress
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gave them a lot of money to deal with that. but if they are still having a problem, i have no problem if they say we have to have a reduced flight schedule. that would be disappointing, but people would understand that. i have a problem with them advertising that they are going to be flying someone from point a to pint == point b and then canceling on them last minute when they know that they can anticipate them. because if they were honest and had less of his schedule, people could make alternative plans. but what is happening here is last minute cancellations and delays, and the obama administration dealt with this, secretary buttigieg has all the tools to deal with it. he should just deal with it. i do not understand the hesitation. kristen: also, i think a lot of people are wondering, didn't airlines get $60 billion during the government from the pandemic? and was in that so they didn't
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have to fire everyone, they will be ready to roll when things start picking up? why did that not happen? >> exactly. i said that earlier, we gave them a lot of money, and it is now up to the department of transportation to hold them accountable. that is what sec. buttigieg should be asking. do you need more resources? why were those resources not enough? what is it you're going to commit to in terms of not being fraudulent or deceptive? my guess is if the secretary invokes it, if he has certain consequences and fines, the airlines will start to comply. he has just not done it. it is mind-boggling why it was not done for july 4 weekend. i hope it will at least be done going forward. kristen: do lawmakers have any other tools to deal with high airfares? i think that is adding insult to injury, people are getting canceled and delays and they are paying twice as much as before. >> again, secretary buttigieg
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has the power to set what an excessive fee would be. he should make that clear to airlines that they should not be price gouging, and they should not be engaged in last minute cancellations. he has a lot of the authority. this has been done by democratic administrations before. i am hopeful now that so many members of congress are speaking out about this that he will act. kristen: has secretary buttigieg responded to you? >> no, not yet, but it was july 4 weekend, so we are expecting a reply this week. i won't take it personally if he does not reply. i just want him to do the policy. kristen: i think a lot of passengers are hoping for something. congressman, thank you for joining us today. when we come back, we will look at some interesting history. a lot of women's names are on the street signs of one particular san francisco neighborhood.
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kristen: the vast majority of landmarks and city streets are named after men. that is also the case in san francisco, but one neighborhood has a decent representation of streets named after women. our media partners at the san francisco standard decided to look into the fascinating story of street names in the south of market area. peter joins us with what they found. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. kristen: i love walking tours, so let's take a walking tour of street signs in the south of market. what are some of the streets bearing women's names? >> there is a whole bunch. there is annie, grace, julie, zoe, harriet. they are kind of all over. there is no real rhyme or reason. they are not a regular grid but they are everywhere.
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kristen: with last names it is often easy to trace the history and know who these people were in history. do we know who these women were? julie, zoe, annie, clement tina? >> in a couple cases there is strong historical evidence they may have been barbary coast court ascends, or sex workers. minna ray simpsons was well documented. she was unfortunately an underage sex worker which he had a wildlife. she was orphaned young, gave birth to a child quite young. was a contemporary emperor norton, the famous 19th century eccentric, as well as jm barrie, the writer of peter pan. it is possible the character wendy might be based on her. kristen: what? that would be very exciting to have a san francisco connection to peter pan.
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of course we had the barbary coast sex workers, but what about the fact we are a big port? there were trading ships that came to san francisco, right? >> right. a lot of historians made connections between the names of the streets and a names of ships that passed through the port of san francisco. lending further credence to this theory is the fact these names show up mostly in soma, which has long been historically a working-class neighborhood, lots of longshoremen and very much connected to the port. kristen: did you go diving into the ledgers of the names of ships that had come into port the past 200 years? >> i did not get quite into that nitty-gritty but i could turn this into a longer piece and dive deeper. kristen: what about the two best sounding streets, octavia and dolores?
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was there actually an octavia or dolores? >> there was. octavia was the sister of charles gauff, and you know gauff street is parallel to octavia. he seems to have been something of a character himself. he was a milkman by trade and i am not sure that would qualify you to get such a long name but for whatever reason it did and his sister seems to have tagged along. kristen: milk is important. do we think it is intentional or coincidence we have this concentration of women's names in the south of market? >> san francisco street names tend to be unusual. we go around town, there is block some and bixby and icehouse allie. it's part of the charm of this city. whether it is intentional, i
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don't know. there is just an organic way the city grows and develops, but it seems to be a theme. kristen: overall, we know the percentage of san francisco streets that carry names of women versus men? >> that is a really good question. clearly there are number of streets named after people's surnames and most of those cases are certainly named four men. even of the city is largely built out by now, we do sometimes rename streets, like freda kahlo way near city college. kristen: how do we do in terms of other news or a landmarks? yeah, golden gate park has a number of statues sadly even now only a couple are representations of women and one of them pioneer woman is actually an allegory. so that's not even named for a real person. so we've got a lot of work to do to have true gender equity true.
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so in that vein is there an effort in city bed the stories and names of women into our street names more maybe going forward. i don't know that there's really a concerted effort from the top down, but i think you know the events of the last few years and the recordings that have passed through american society. i think i think san francisco is ready for it. and i think people are willing to change. alright any last thoughts? things that you gleaned that you were like aha as you research the story. this is a great question. thank you. i did want to kind of check my assumptions. you know, i lived in soma for a long time. so i've kind of always thought about this trend and you know, it's a very tourist heavy and pedestrian heavy neighborhood. so if you stumble upon a lot of streets with women's names you might think that that's how it is, but there are a lot of places around town that also
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have streets name for women and there's administrate in ingleside and jewel street your golden gate park, there's a beatrice lane in hunters point. they're kind of everywhere, but the dentist concentration is definitely south of market. well peter astra kane's personal walking tour of san francisco. i see that i see it as a tourist draw it's coming up. i love it. all right. congratulations on the story. thanks so much for sharing it with us. by the way, folks. you can check out more of the san francisco standards other original reporting on the website sf standard.com and abc 7. we'll continue to bring you. segments featuring the standards city focused journalism look for that twice a week right here on getting answers at 3 pm. getting answers at 3 pm. when a truck hit my car, getting answers at 3 pm. the insurance company wasn't fair. i didn't know what my case was worth.
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on this interactive show getting answers will be here every weekday at 3:00 on air and tonight, the death toll is growing as we learn chilling new details about the deadly fourth of july parade shooting in high land park, illinois. just moments ago, authorities revealed a seventh victim has now died, with more than 30 injured. the sheriff says the suspected gunman pre-planned the attack for several weeks. the gunman armed with a high-powered rifle firing more than 70 rounds into the crowd from the top of a building. today, authorities released surveillance images appearing to show him wearing a wig and women's clothing to make his escape. the sheriff describes how they tracked him down, arresting him in his mother's car. late today, police revealed they had several encounters with this suspect, including an attempted suicide in 2019. they say disturbing posts and videos were discovered son social media. there are quest
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