>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions, this is abc 7 news. >> good afternoon euro watching getting answers live on abc seven we are asking experts your questions every day at 3:00 to get your answers in real-time. today we have great reasons free to adopt a rescue dog, the former giants player and his wife alexis joined us to share how they arguing back and the executive erector of family dog -- director of family dog rescue helps explain how they find dogs there forever home. it has impacted not only the people living in there, but also those who had summer plans to visit.

the tourism bureau joins us today. today the latest in covid news, president biden says he feels great after testing negative for covid-19, the impact of the ba.5 variant across the country and here in the bay area as kids cure to have back-to-school. the latest on monkeypox cases and the push to get more vaccines. joining us live now is dr. bob, thank you so much for being here today. >> my pleasure. >> i have to ask, we have been following up with you, how is your life doing after dealing with covid -- life doing after dealing with covid? >> thanks for asking, her first novel was published yesterday and got a great view and got a great view in the times so she is very happy. she is 90% better, three months out from her infection, and the course along covid it is not quite perfect, still little

brain fog, doing much better. >> tell her that we are happy she is doing better and congratulations. as a doctor, how did you stay safe at the event? >> i do not know if i stayed as safe as i needed to, we will see. this was a reunion of sorts with a bunch of college buddies in massachusetts. we try to stay outside for most the time but we got a swarm of mosquitoes that took us inside. no one was wearing a mask, but i decided to an a half years into this i was ok with not wearing a mask with a small friend group, three out of 20 have tested positive, it shows when you let your guard down, there is risk. >> i did not know how many days ago that was, but how long after

do you need to keep testing? how long after could you possibly be positive? >> the event was friday through sunday. it is now wednesday. i feel fine, i tested negative yesterday and today. i will keep testing for one or two more days. you start testing on day three after exposure, if you are negative on day five you're probably out of the woods. >> what are we seeing when it comes the number of hospitalizations with covid right now? >> it is this funny split screen. the number of cases is tremendous. we all see friends and family who got it and did not get it for 2.5 years. there is a lot of covid around, people are not as careful as they work. the efficacy of the vaccines, even if you have gotten boosted against getting infected is not that high. a cases, hospitalizations are mostly stable depending on the

region you are in. the bay area fairly stable, number of icu admissions fairly low, the number of people with rather than for covid is fairly high, about 50-50, the number of deaths is relatively low. a ton of covid, not as severe as we saw earlier in the pandemic. >> you said there was reason to believe and hope in a lul in cases and early fall, what you thing that is? about 9 million children ages five to 11 are fully vaccinated come about percent of that age group. the school year is approaching, can you talk about what you expect for us to see in the all -- fall? >> predictions are always hazardous, particularly ones that are taped and can be played back. one of the things interesting about the past six months, we have the huge surge in december

and january, we expected to come down, as it was coming down we had this new variant that was more infectious that prompted up. since then we have had three more variance each 120% more infectious. -- 1 20% more infectious. at this stage, if you were keeping with the pattern there was a -- there would be another variant that has emerged and taking over for ba.5. that has not emerged yet. there is a variant prevalent in india, but is not taking off. if ba.5 is the and of the road for variance with omicron, it is always hazardous to predict, but if it is a last one i will expect we will see cases go down over time as more people get ba.5, are immune to it, and that could lead us to have a

reasonably good early fall. all bets are off after that. we might have new variants, people go inside more, there could be another winter surge, if that holds through, maybe december and october a pretty good. >> talking about fall, back-to-school, what is your advice to parents when it comes to covid and their kids as a europe going back to school? -- as they gear up going back to school. >> get your kid vaccinated. vaccinations have a minuscule risk, kids mostly do ok, we do not know what the risk is for their entire lifetime and some kids get quite sick with covid, most do not. if i had my kids going to school and there was a lot of covid and the environment i would have my kid wear our mask. if the cases were lower i would rethink that. make sure your schools paying attention to ventilation as

well. >> let's talk about monkeypox, the u.s. signed off on a hundred thousand doses of monkeypox axing, some have said -- 800,000 thousand doses of monkeypox vaccine, it has been slow and frustrating. k talk about what people can do until it is available? >> and looks like monkeypox, unlike covid, is it spread through much more intimate contact. it is mostly men who have sex with men, although there is worry that it can spread to other populations. cases have been reported in children, pregnant women, others. there is tremendous concern about the gay publishing, but there is concern that they will spread on that. beef -- until we know more people should be careful in terms of their contacts, and we get enough vaccine out there available to the at risk populations. >> any recommendations for who

is -- who should get vaccinated? >> i am waiting for more guidance to come out from the cdc about which populations. a lot of it depends about how much vaccine we have. at this point it seems like the risk is largely in the population that has been defined as being high risk. men who have sex with men. we will have to see, when the vaccine is available for other population groups. the good news about monkeypox, at least so far, there has not been a reported death in united states. it is a bad in painful disease. we are not good at diagnosing it yet because it is so new so there's a lot of misdiagnosis going on out there. hopefully it will turn out to be reasonably benign in terms of severe outcomes like death. >> before you go, we have a viewer question for you.

daniel was a no how much protection one has after getting the first shot of the monkeypox vaccine. >> i do not know the answer to that. i would go to my colleagues who is studying it more closely. i have mostly focused on covid. >> we appreciate your honesty, daniel sometime this week we will get you the answer to that. we know some of our reporters are covering monkeypox on a daily basis. dr. bob, thank you so much for making time press as always we appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> will be right back with the update on the oak

- you okay? - there's a flex alert today so i'm mentally preparing for the power outage. oh, well we can help stop one because we are going to reduce our energy use from 4-9pm. what now? i stepped on a plug. oh that's my bad! unplugging. when it comes to preventing outages the power is ours. >> the oak fire and mariposa county is the largest wildfire

in california right now and as of this morning cruise -- crews reached a 32% containment, joining us now is a director for the tourism bureau, thank you for being with us tony, we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> this is a busy time for tourism at yosemite national park, i was there a few weeks ago, semi people planned summer trips to go there and visit this magical place. as many people see it. what is the latest on closures in the area? what you people know who have plans to go there in the coming weeks? >> currently the only thing that is closes the mariposa grove of giant sequoias, that has been close for a few weeks because of the washburn fire, started on july 7 it is 91% contained, outside of the park, 140 closed

in mariposa due to oak fire and that reopened last night. things are improving here. the park remains open. it is open, you can visit, i would say the air quality is being impacted in the region. >> i was going to ask about the smoke. is it impacting people who go there to hike or bike or anything? >> we are seeing impacts for air quality, the good news is there are resources out there to help people make a decision. at they're planning to visit this weekend or even sooner about how air quality is, yosemite national park has webcams that run all-time that show what conditions are like inside the valley. those are great resources. what we are seeing a mariposa is that is quite smoky in the morning, as the wind shifts it glows the smoke out of the community and mariposa and into the east. with the containment on the fire and the acreage growing less day by day i am hoping we will see

things continue to improve with air quality as well. >> we hope so. for anyone that has trips booked for this upcoming weekend or the next few weeks, what do they need to know? is there anything they need to double check before they go so they are not turning around and coming back home? >> the biggest thing is air quality. the current oak fire is not burning inside of yosemite national park. there is nothing inside of yosemite at brett from fire. -- threat from fire. the biggest thing is air quality, if someone has respiratory issues into someone spend time out in the smoke. purple tier.com is a purple -- purpleair.com is a great place to check as well as the webcams. >> have you seen an impact on tourism because of these fires? >> unfortunately we have.

from the conversations i've had with property managers and visitors trying to decide what the dues we have heard of cancellations for lodging outside of the park. that has a big impact. mariposa county, 52% of the people that live here are employed in tourism, where the largest percentages in the state of california. when people cancel trips and hotel stays that affects everyone from hotels to people to work in restaurants. cal fire is projecting that this fire will be fully contained by august 6. if you have a trip planned further out, or even a week out, please do not cancel, consider rescheduling. that has a big impact in the local community and the economy and people that live here have to have stable income from tourism to support their families. >> i do have to ask, the people that work for somebody, the people that live there that are

part of the -- yosemite, the people that live there and part of the tourism community. some of had to be evacuated and now returning to their homes. give us an idea of how their coping. >> our staff has been more fortunate than some. a couple voluntarily left their homes because they lived in the area that could have been impacted. i lived near where this fire was, but never had to leave. each of us know someone that has lost her home. it is a devastating tragedy, these are friends, neighbors, people we love and care for. it does take a toll on you. we are ready to get back to normal whenever normal comes. we need visitation to help us recover, unfortunately we have to rebuild. >> i have to ask, what is being done to preserve the landscape

in the sequoia trees that people come in from all over the world to see? >> the national park, over the last decade has done a very good job with the fuel reduction program. the washburn fire was ace -- an example of the success of that program. the people that work in the park and the forests surround the park work during the wet season to clear down trees and read news -- and reduce some of those fuels. that is what leads to the big fires we see. climate change effects it as well. our four screw is inside and outside of yosemite staved -- stay very busy to reduce the impact to reduce what we see in fire season right now. >> as you mentioned it is open to tourism, people should not cancel their plans. they should check on the air

quality and enjoy the beautiful park. any highlights you want to mention that people should come visit this year specifically? >> yosemite valley everyone is familiar with, a world known place. i would say that areas outside of the valley is beautiful as well. my personal favorite part are the high country lakes and the domes above 9000 feet are stunningly beautiful. mariposa county itself is a great place to visit as well. it is very small, it is large in space, but when it comes to population they're only 18,000 people that live here, towns like mariposa are historic and beautiful. we have a number of museums, great restaurants, good shopping, good recreation outside of the park. the river canyon is beautiful in its own right, there are lower elevation lakes good for swimming and fishing. i think the world's largest floating waterpark is actually

here and mariposa county. there is a time to see and do. we cannot wait for people to go comfortable to return as soon as next week. >> we hope so for your sake, i went there for my first time recently and i left it. -- loved it. i cannot wait to go back. it is a massive area and there is so much to see and so much to do. tony, thank you so much for your time today and best of luck to you for an exceptional tourism season 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 on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. the three what? the three ps? what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget.

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what you do? >> this is a moment to build a better bay area. join us. >> downtown san francisco is still recovering from the pandemic, two groups are coming together to try to bring it back to life, abc7news anchor reggie talks about a new proposal in abc 7 at seven. >> i work downtown and i come back here a lot and is still is giving a little bit of ghost town fives. at -- vibes. a lot of people are working part-time at home or working full-time at home. that is how it will be for the foreseeable future. here is the task. how do we make downtown something, and not just empty streets with empty buildings? what is the answer? >> we are hoping to change that vibe with plans coming out that's all. as why we partnered with site

lab to reimagine what downtown san francisco could be. /-- splashing murals on walls, bringing new lighting. >> laura, has this been tried somewhere else? has this been successful? >> yes, around the country and the world really there has been various projects investing in our streets and public spaces. it is something, particular north of market downtown could see more of. yes, we have lots of exams around the world of everything from events and live music, and as he said art and other seating and greening to make more of a destination of our streets and public places. we are not making downtown a workspace or public -- office space. it is a destination you want to

go. >> i see planters, for example that close off a street. with echols about permanently to pedestrians? where are we talking about? >> what we have done -- [indiscernible] we actually do not have that many street closures. in most cases we are expanding the sidewalk where there is extra space, some places has extra loading and parking. an example would be, the alleyways north of market where, for one block where we currently already have some restaurant seating expanded out, one block could be closed. then the rest could be closed during events. not permanently, we want to make sure we can balance functionality and do things that can happen as soon as possible. >> we also call them street

openings, actually. downtown is very pedestrian friendly. with this plan we hope to make a more pedestrian centric. >> opening for pedestrians. >> one thing happening in san francisco, and a lot of folks since they are working from home, the neighborhoods outside of downtown have become livelier. i live in the mission, what did you just call it? streatery openings? we have street openings, closed to traffic, we have that multiple times a week now and it has made the area much livelier. it gives people space and you can hold any kind of event up to your imagination. it makes sense to me that we are bringing that from the neighborhoods to downtown. how fast can we get that going? >> you bring up a really good point. imagine what has been done in the neighborhoods during the pandemic? that can translate to downtown.

we want residents to come back downtown. we think this plan, although very ambitious, we plan to have some improvements start this fall. >> the money from that is coming -- for that is coming from where? >> is started with us, we are 501 -- we are in nonprofit. we do have some seed money. this is a call to action. we want folks to join us and help us fund these murals and alley activations. it will really take a village to reimagine downtown san francisco. >> this is really interesting and obviously the beginning of the conversation, one step in many steps. i appreciate you both talking to us. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> that was reggie from our morning show today, while at you know that continues in just a

moment. but first, and reminded can get our live newscast, breaking news, weather and more with her abc news bay area streaming tv app is available on apple tv, android tv, higher tv, and roku just search abc 7 bay area and you can downl it. >> i am not hearing from victims all across the country. their bank accounts were trained in seconds. the banks are not refunding their money until -- >> you do not know how excited i got. >> oh my god, my money is back. >> i'm so happy i want to cry. >> i could not be more thankful to 7 on your side. >> we will all be ok thanks to you.

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>> thank you so much for joining us on this interactive tonight, breaking news. the u.s. and its offer to russia. the effort tonight to free detained americans wnba star brittney griner and paul economy land. sp the u.s. wants to make a deal with russia to get them home. sources tonight telling bc news the u.s. is proposing an exchange for convicted armed dealer victor bout, now serving time in the u.s. how likely is this? how early could this happen? mary bruce live at the white house. tonight, the major move by the fed to try to slow inflation what americans are paying for everything. the federal reserve today hiking interest rates three quarters of a percent. how today's move effects americans right away and rebecca jarvis breaks it down. breaking news as we come on. joe manchin in a reversal now has now struck a deal with