>> this is abc 7 news. kristen: i am kristen sze. you're watching getting answers live on abc 7. we ask experts your questions every day to get answers in real-time. today, san francisco mayor will be here. we will talk with her about the city's response to crime, monkeypox, and whether mass committed can make a comeback. also our media partners of the san francisco standard will talk to us about a problem affecting many school districts but especially san francisco unified. a severe staffing shortage. plus the battle over how to teach math. could the most effective approach be, don't teach, at least initially? first, with the ba.5 subvariant

fueling a large wave of calwood cases, could we see a return to the mask mandate? joining us now is infectious disease specialist to answer my questions and yours. so feel free to ask them now if you're watching this on facebook live. great to have you here. guest: thank you for having me on. kristen: how higher the case numbers right now? give us the official numbers and the estimated numbers. guest: we are at an all-time high probably in reality. and i will tell you why. the official numbers only get at a slice of what is happening. as many people know, you are testing at home, some people are not testing, and some people are testing but getting negative tests because we are finding down -- finding out that with omicron people are testing later positive even though they started symptoms earlier. it is about five times with the

official numbers are, and that brings us to where we are in january. nationally, some experts believe even though it says 100,000 per day we are probably in the realm of one million cases a day, given those reasons i mentioned. kristen: wow. well, looking at that, los angeles is considering bringing back the mask mandate perhaps by the end of the month if things stay that way. they seem to be the lone wolf. no other public health officials in california i know of are talking about this. do you think that could or should happen in the bay area if we stay the course? guest: i don't think it will happen in the bay area for several reasons. the first reason is although we start out off -- started off by saying so many cases, you would have thought that by now we would have seen something in the hospitals. but even though hospitals are moderately full with covid, at

ucsf now it is about 45 cases of covid right now across four hospitals. in january with the same level of cases we had about 150 cases in the hospital, and many were in the intensive care unit. not as many this time. in fact, only about three people ventilated. so people are coming in for shorter, they are not as sick, and i think that is the reason why we probably will not go there. maybe about 50% of people in the hospital are just positive because people in the community are positive, they are not coming in because of covid. so that is where the eyes are looking. the prize is can hospitals manage it, and so far, so good in the bay area. and so far we have vaccinated a high number across all age groups, probably the best in the country when you look at specific age groups. kristen: that is a little bit

better news, and we were looking for that. let's talk about what is going on today in the news. the cdc says it will no longer track or report covid-19 cases aboard cruise ships. why is that do you think? guest: i think they are saying it is just the same as you have been seeing a lot of restrictions being dropped in many public transit, bart, planes. cruise ships are little different because you're kind of trapped, you are a captive audience. and historically they have been the source of major outbreaks. but right now given the tools that people have, vaccinations, etc., the cdc saying let's divert our resources somewhere else. and it does not alleviate the fact that some cruise lines are going to check -- track individually. it depends on the consumer risk, all of you listening. you look at your consumer -- at your cruise line, many of them

require vaccinations, some require testing on top of vaccinations, so it depends on your risk. kristen: do you think inherently the cruising environment is not any more risky than going to the movie theaters or a restaurant here at home? guest: it probably is not as much riskier in isolation, but because you are indoors potentially for a long period of time, that is why it is potentially more spreadable. but again, you are right, you could go indoor dining every single day of the week and it would be similar to going to that indoor dining in a cruiseship because the rest of the time in a cruiseship you could be outdoors by the pool or doing jazzercise or whatever you do on a cruiseship. kristen: another piece of news i want to discuss, more traditional novavax vaccine moved another step closer today

to becoming available. talk about that. guest: yeah, so novavax is using a little bit of traditional vaccine technology. everyone knows what mrna, you send a code to the sale and it makes a spike protein your body makes antibodies to. in novavax, they go a step further. they are chopping up bits of the spike protein and antibody aches antibodies to it. so it is using the protein already made, antibody gets the signal. the reason why people are looking at this is first of all it gives an alternative to people who might have had a bad side effect with previous vaccine. but most importantly it may give a reason for the 25 million americans who still have not gotten vaccinated to potentially get one. kristen: a new study concerns covid vaccines and women's menstrual cycle. what does that tell us? guest: we might have even talked

about this during the last year. people who have been getting the vaccines from covid reported heavier bleeding, irregular periods for a short time, maybe one or two cycles. i think what the study does is really validates all of that and is in orton to disclose what might happen and people want to get worried. they looked at almost 40,000 people around the world after the vaccine and about half of them had heavier bleeding. some of them had lighter bleeding but most had heavier bleeding. but it only lasted for one to two cycles. to me, what it means is you want to prepare somebody that this might happen, instead of saying i don't know why it happened, or worrying if that happens in a particular individual. kristen: more importantly, it is short-term, so that's reassuring. does catching covid increase your risk for other diseases?

are there any new studies that would tell us one way or the other? guest: there are some scientists who believe that when we had covid, we were in the thick of it and people were getting really sick, they did not see a lot of other things. there is this idea that once you get sick one thing, the other things get minimized because your body is focused on one thing and it is building up resources to guard against other things. i am not sure if this is going to be bearing out in this flu season coming up. but there is nothing that prevents you from getting multiple infections at the same time. it may not be as common as one would expect given what is circulating. kristen: we have about 30 seconds but i want to ask where you think we are with monkeypox. we still have the vaccine shortage and if we don't get a lot more supply quickly, what is your concern? guest: there are four scenarios.

one is that the outbreak burns out. that is why we need vaccines right now to break the transmission. you second is it spills into the general population. nothing biologically is stopping that. three, it gets into the animal population in the u.s., in which case it becomes endemic. four, it spills from our animal population to humans from time to time, giving rise to outbreaks periodically. kristen: thank you, as always, for your great explanations. next, we talked to san francisco mayor london breed about the efforts to get more monkeypox vaccine.

kristen: from a new public park, to new district attorney, to new shelter beds for the

homeless, there are many new development this week. joining islam to talk about what is happening, san francisco mayor london breed. nice to have. mayor breed: thank you. kristen: let's start with a new announcement you made a few hours ago that has to do with addressing homelessness. new beds are being added at a couple of centers. talk to wes about those, and will they make an impact? mayor breed: today we added 250 new additional shelter beds. and in fact, since covid we have had to make some significant changes to our shelter system which was a congregate living setting. and this different model involves individual rooms and a separation from one another differently from what our shelter system provided. once we are finished with the additional beds we are adding, we expect to have in the next three months about 1000 new shelter beds. but ultimately i think the goal is to get people into permanent housing.

so this is really just about transition off the streets, having a paley's -- having a place people can go as we transition them into a more permanent housing situation. kristen: it is one piece of the puzzle for a solution. i also want to turn to retail theft, because that continues to impact residents's quality of life and the businesses. my colleague reported yesterday, leman seen last year and that viral video shoplifting at a bike at a walgreens is out after serving time, and police arrested him this past weekend for allegedly doing the same thing, this time at a cvs. so you have a new d.a. who is promising accountability, but what will actually change in terms of the investigation, the consequences? mayor breed: i think what is most important, because we are talking about someone who was arrested, i am not sure whether or not he was prosecuted or how much time he did.

but ultimately making sure that in addition to holding him accountable to the crime that he committed, what are we doing to ensure that this is not the only option for this person once they exit the criminal justice system. so making sure that there is a real connection between, yes, accountability and serving your time, but what happens after that is over. so our hope is that with the work that what rda is doing there is accountability but the other side of that is a number of our service agencies address issues around services, that we make sure there is a real connection between the people that get arrested and the ability to make sure they reenter society and are able to live productive lives without committing these levels of crime. kristen: what does the responder to -- what does the restorative part of this mean? what kind of services might be offered to try and prevent him from doing this again? mayor breed: i don't know enough

about the person's condition. i don't know about their mental state or any other issues to understand what could be made available. but for people who have mental challenges, there are services for people who suffer from addiction. the goal of course is always treatment. if none of those issues exist, there are a number of resources and job opportunities and races that are available. urban alchemy is a program that is a perfect example of people who have been any system and turned their lives around and you are provided with an opportunity to make money in a legitimate way through a job. and so i think it depends on this person's situation and skill set. we have resources available but the final part of that is the person has to have the desire to accept what we are able to offer. and my hope is we get to the bottom of what is going on with this individual and we are able to get this person on the right path. but i just don't have enough information to tell you whether or not we can.

kristen: look, with covid we are not necessarily on the right after yet in that cases are still high. although hospitalizations still remain manageable. given that scenario, given that los angeles will likely bring back its mass mandate, is there a scenario in which you can see that happening? mayor breed: at this time and talking to our various public health experts it is not something that they are considering. i think what we have done in san francisco as a leader in covid, as a department of public health that has made some very conservative decisions to protect public health and we have seen the difference in the number of people who actually die from covid, still less than 1000 people over the entire time in one of the densest cities in the country. so i am trusting our public health experts in right now there is no indication we are going in that direction. kristen: all right. i also want to ask you about monkeypox.

cd leaders including yourself have been talking about the federal supply needing to increase quickly. what are you doing to try and ensure that happens? mayor breed: today we are sending holly or becerra, the director who oversees the department of health for the entire country, making sure it is clear that here in san francisco, especially because of the people who are impacted by monkeypox that we have not only the resources we need as it relates to vaccine, but there is also an educational component that needs to go out to various communities. we need help and we need it now plead we know it is complicated in terms of the ability to get the vaccines at a faster pace. but i think with san francisco, with our high lgbtq population, it is truly important that places like san francisco get more attention, more support, and we get a larger share of vaccines in order to make sure that we mitigate this challenge. kristen: mayor breed, you are on

cnbc a few weeks ago and acknowledging in our tech heavy city many workers are not coming back to the office and that means an increase in vacant space and a loss of tax revenue. you said adjustments may need to be made. i am wondering what types of adjustments. mayor breed: adjustments, doing business in the city needs to be made easier. we know that in some of our various retail spaces there are restrictions on what types of businesses can happen. so providing the ability for changes in how we provide office space or retail space or space for anyone to set up a pop-up or other kinds of uses and spaces, be more creative around how we use public and private space in san francisco, is basically what the new normal is. so i get that many people are no longer interested in maybe returning to a five day a week

work week, but they may be open to three. and how do we make sure that the spaces that we have available also provide what is needed in terms of the number of people who are coming into the city on a regular basis. it is a very complicated issue but part of it is really understanding not just tech and what tech companies are doing, but there are a lot of other businesses and small businesses in san francisco to understand what they are doing and what they want to see the city do more of to attract more people back to work in the downtown area also all over the city. kristen: speaking of attractive say -- spaces, cannot let you go without talking about our new spark in the presidio. this is a long time in the making. mayor breed: let me just say that i am so grateful to speaker of the house nancy pelosi and lynn benioff and mark buell and randy fisher, they all cochaired $95 million campaign to

basically provide this tremendous gift to the city and it is absolutely beautiful. it is extraordinary and it is open to the public. it is one of those places you go that has risk-taking views b programs, food trucks, you can take your own picnic basket, there are fire pits and benches. rageful that we have a place like this in san francisco for people of all walks of life to enjoy and families to have a good time. kristen: in a city with great views everywhere, i have to say that looks to be one of the best. i cannot wait to visit that soon. mayor breed, thank you so much. up next, san francisco unified is looking to staff up, as teachers depart in droves. we will get into i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance

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you cannot be turned down because of your health. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock so your rate can never go up for any reason. options start at $9.95 a month, plus you get a 30-day money back guarantee. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. use this valuable guide to record your important information and give helpful direction to your loved ones with your final wishes. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information. kristen: school districts across the country are facing a major

problem, teachers leaving the profession in record numbers. it is a problem acutely felt by san francisco unified, where the scramble is on to make sure there are enough teachers to teach all the kids this fall. >> from the teacher's point of view, i just think they tired of the system. >> i don't think the world is ready for the historic teacher shortage that is about to happen. it is going to be massive. kristen: our media partner the san francisco standard has taken a deep dive into this issue, talking to teachers and looking at numbers. they published a new article on what is driving the crisis, and how the district is coping. joinin to talk about that is the reporter of that piece. welcome back to the show. so, time is running out. less than one month before the school year begins. how shortstaffed is san francisco unified? ida: the school district says they are 450 classroom vacancies for the upcoming year, 75% of

which have been filled, which is similar to last year. however, they have over 500 positions that were posted online and they are also prepared to fill any classroom gaps with administrators who have credentials to teach with substitutes like they did last year but that had a ripple effect on operations for a lot of the year. kristen: you talked to different teachers and we showed a couple of them. of course they have different reasons for leaving. but i wonder, how much of it is your sense that it is pandemic-driven and how much is driven by the frustration with things unique to teaching in this district? ida: i think a lot of it is pandemic-related and the compounding effects of teaching students coming back to in person learning for the first time for a full year and students having to get used to that environment. staffing shortages, the ongoing

pandemic and shortages both from that and from teachers leaving. and then at the same time san francisco unified school district has had their payroll problems, the budget deficit that led to layoff notices. so that spread a lot of instability and uncertainty for teachers as well as burnout. kristen: what is the district doing to address this? are they talking pay raises, bonuses, what incentives are they creating? ida: they approved a couple of stipends for teachers, retention bonuses that were supposed to go out this summer and again a little bit later on. whether that is enough to hold onto the teachers they do have remains to be seen. but they said that they are working to contain new staffing and find ways to keep the teachers. kristen: i also want to briefly address a different kind of crisis. a lot of people say math, the scores have not been great

according to data. it seems only half of the students here are meeting math proficiency standards. so with that, the district has created a pilot program that does seem to be promising. tell us about that. ida: in 2015, john mere elementary school tried implementing a new math curriculum that actually teaches -- sorry, it has students try to solve a problem before teaching them how to solve it and then they present the findings to one another. it is not so much the strategy seems to be making a big impact on the school. the test scores just did a complete turnaround and they had higher than the average districtwide test scores among black and hispanic students in particular. that school is majority socially disadvantaged and black and hispanic. so that was a really big turnaround for that school, that people are open can be

replicated. the big success out of that is the professional development for teachers who are given time to learn from another and observe each other and reflect on how they are teaching students and teacher experiences aches a huge difference. kristen: we are out of time on the air but don't go away. we will continue to chat on facebook live. you can check out more of the san francisco standard's other reporting on the website. we will continue to bring you more segments featuring their city-focused journalism. reminder, you can get our live newscast and more on our streaming tv app. searchsearch kristen:

tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. the fiery explosion at the hover dam. images of the flames and smoke. this potentially life-threatening heat across the u.s. and the fires all around london tonight. the pictures coming in now. this deadly heat in europe. first here in the u.s., temperatures in the triple digits, shattering records. more than 100 million americans under heat alerts from texas all the way up to the northeast. new york to massachusetts. tonight we witnessed the first responders answering the calls for help already. how long will this last? ginger zee standing by to time this out. while in the uk tonight the hottest temperature ever recorded in london. more than 104 degrees. tonight those fires burning in and around london. and the wildfires across europe. many out of control.