building a better bay area moving forward finding solutions. this is abc 7 news. hi there. i'm kristen z you're watching getting answers live on abc 7 every day. we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and get answers for you in real time. today. we're helping you get ready for the holiday heatwave with triple digit temperatures on the way. we've got a flex alert taking effect in just one hour and already a spare the air alert set for tomorrow. we'll check in with meteorologist. mike nico on what you expect or what to expect where you live and how to stay safe. but first big news from the fda in cdc this week giving the go ahead to the updated covid-19 booster shots, but should you get one and if so when join us live now to answer those questions and everything you need to know about covid is abc

7 news special correspondent dr. alok patel, dr. patel. be friday. happy friday to you kristen. it is good to be here digitally and i will take it. all right, so let's do this pre-holiday edition of two truths and a lie, because there's a lot to cover. i think you've got a special booster edition for us, don't you? okay. well well played on that pun it is gonna be boosterific. i love it. okay folks just for that dr. patel gets bonus points and you've got to play along. so if you're on facebook live take a look and help me figure out the answer. let's do it. everyone knows how to play tell us which one of these is not true. i got a little tricky fair warning is it a individuals can get the new booster if it's been two months since their last booster or their primary series or last shot or is it b according to cdc director wolinsky the safety data for this approved vaccine is based off 600 million vaccines given a previous five valent trial and data we have in mice or is it c

unlike the bivalent booster shot the annual flu shot goes through a small human trial every year which one of these is not true. i promise all of these are important. okay. i know the answer to this one. i am so confident. i could answer without looking at facebook and my brilliant viewers, but i'm going to give them a chance to play along. so i'm gonna wait for some responses. oh daniel's answer coming in c. and anybody else? all right. i do think that daniel is right and janet is right. oh and all these seeds coming in because i think the annual flu shot does not go through a human trial each year. so see is life. i don't answer. a finances correct? see i said i made it tricky, but i never said that you and our audience are not brilliant and pay attention what's happening out there? so see is not true is not true.

you're absolutely right. so every year the annual flu shot gets remodified to what upcoming flu mutation? we will see and that's how the shot is made. it is based off of a vaccine that we've been given we've been giving for decades. the reason this is important is there's a lot of comparison to the seasonal flu shot with what is currently happening right now at the omicron booster because this specific bivalent vaccine did not go through human trial. it went through. i'll throw safety review which we kind of alluded to and choice be there where the cdc said. hey, we've been given out this vaccine now for more than almost two years and 600 million doses have been given and there isn't actually that much of a difference if you actually look at the mrna sequence between the ancestral coronavirus it was designed for and this updated version targeting b form b5, and we can get more into that kristen and well we can get more into a as well in terms of who should get the vaccine and when have you been looking at my questions because in fact that is what i want to ask you now, right? it's gonna be out there first of all, and how many days they said next week, but did they set a

date? did not say a day, but i will tell you the first shots were actually given this morning in new york city. oh, and so it it's entirely possible that we will actually have a supply of these vaccines over the weekend, but the goal was to have it rolled out after the holiday weekend, so i have not seen any specific updates about when they'll be available in the bay area, but i would encourage everyone to stay and pay attention. okay. you would as necessary or optional to get this one? you know, it's hard to actually call it necessary or optional and the reason i will tell you that kristen is because we know for a fact that what we currently have going on with regards to the primary vaccine series those two shots and the booster shot are well equipped in terms of preventing severe illness and debt. in fact according to data that just came out in june anyone about the age of five who is fully vaccinated had an eight times eight times less likelihood of dying compared to those who are unvaccinated and individuals above the age of 50 who had two booster shots had a

14 times less likely chance of dying compared to un vaccinated older adults and even is still higher chance and an individuals who had one booster shot so they still work really well, but i would not call them optional either. i would say we have to completely and realistically hedge our own individual risk and realize that we don't really know what's happening this winter. we are in a much better place than we were the last two years in terms of natural immunity. that's out there vaccine acquired immunity treatments and all of that, but i was still encourage people to sincerely consider getting this vaccine. especially because it is tailored to the strain that represents about 90% of cases out there and we'll be against. to come fall and winter without it. am i right what and i don't think people understand how astute of a point that is that you just made is if we look at omer khan, we look at the sub. is right now if you look at ba1,

which is what the previous vaccine trial was previous by the backseat trial was looking at ba1 versus ba 4 and 5. they're pretty similar in terms of their mrna sequence. despite protein is nearly identical. there's a couple little mutations that are different. so the cdc felt comfortable looking at pfizer's clinical trial data for the previous bivalent vaccine option, which was the ancestral strain of ba1 and said, this is so close about 1400 people to actually make it direct comparison to what we're gonna see with ba4ba 5 and the ancestral strain so that is how they made the that is how they were comfortable and saying that there's gonna be a good immune response and also that it is by far going to be a safe vaccine. okay? let me fire off some quick ones at you who should should get one right now. so individuals above the age of 12 are eligible for pricer by the aged 18 for moderna, and as we mentioned is two months after you completed your last shot, but advisors are the cdc are actually recommending that if you can based on your situation and your area, wait a little bit

longer, you know upwards of three months four months, you might actually get a better benefit what isn't as clear right now is how long you should wait if you previously had infection because if you've had an infection in the last few months presumably it's going to be omicron probably before ba5. and so, you know, some physicians are recommending some scientists are recommending that you wait a few months after getting a previous infection to get this booster timing is crucial. what do you recommend? because i do know a lot of people got it. let's say in june right it was going around. how long would you wait? i would almost view i previous infection as somewhat of a booster and i don't i hesitate to actually directly call it a booster because we don't know how long your immunity is really gonna last for a natural infection. we don't know the durability, but i would recommend people wait at least wait until you're done having symptoms, but wait a month or two, but honestly, it comes down to chatting with your health and professional because it does depend on your own individual situation. no hard and fast rule i get it. okay, that's how it is, right? okay. wait, don't get immediately. okay, what if you have never

gotten one yet? do you just go get this? does it become your primary? and then would it be two shots of that for you? it does not become your primary. so it is still recommended if you are unvaccinated at this point, please go out and still go and get your primary vaccine series those two doses. this is designed to be a boost to the prime. so this is designed to actually augment the immunity that you would get from that primary vaccine series and chris and since you brought this point up, we are all waiting for the cdc to finally say that fully vaccinated includes a booster and it's no longer just the first two shots. okay, what about what kids going back to school with that hasten up the timeline for you? it what matters for kids when back to school is if they've completed their primary vaccine series, and we're still waiting at least two months after that. so i would not say this hastings up the timeline now if your child depending on how old your child is completed a vaccine series and it's been three months and you were saying hey we want to wait till five months or six months.

i would say that hastings the timeline in terms of potential exposures, but remember we're only talking about kids above the age of 12 who this new bivalent booster is approved for so people under the age of 12, you've got to do what you got to do. make sure that your children have their primary vaccine series. they're boosted and you're paying attention to what school resources look like whether or not your child needs to be wearing a mask and what testing supplies you may have just in case. all right. do you know there's an estimated or risk assessment for myocarditis after this new booster? is it the same as before? it's unknown. and so, you know when i say, it's unknown that some people out there might be feel very hesitant of me saying that but i'm being completely transparent there is ongoing there will be ongoing human trial and safety data after the administration of this bivalent vaccine, but the previous trial the one that i just mentioned looking at ba1 and the ancestral strain from pfizer fortunate individuals did not show any serious adverse events. there were no reported cases of myocarditis in either group with

pfizer or previous child from moderna. we do know there's a slightly increased risk of myocarditis, especially in young adolescent and late teen boys from moderna. but again, you got away that against your risk of getting myocarditis from actually getting covid and as always about this, you know, you chat your doctor about that. okay, abc news has a story today out about experts warning that covid is becoming a mass disablement event. that's hurting the economy. can you explain that? yeah, i'm glad that we're we're talking about this because is going to be an knowing discussion kristen. so right now you know what abc's been reporting. is that an estimated 14 to 16 million americans are suffering from long covid and that's likely an underrepresentation this translates into somewhere around two to four million americans being unable to work now people out there might be saying what could potentially keep you from working and one of the most commonly reported symptoms of long covid is this brain fatigue this inability to actually think and focus so it's different than saying.

hey, i'm tired right now. it's being unable to actually focus and do your job and this is not only very debilitating for people. it's costing our economy billions of dollars and you know, there was a statement put out from a scientist a couple weeks ago saying that we need to be prepared. not only for more long covid, but what could potentially happen long term with regards to people's underlying medical conditions cardiovascular conditions neurological and all of it, and we need to make sure that our healthcare systems are ready for that including our ability to work remotely find child care and all of it and i don't really know for ready for this yet. actually, we're not there's no thinking scary. just thinking about it, but you're right. we've got to tackle that don't go away dr. patel is sticking around to continue answering all of our covid questions and we'll touch monke

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with abc 7 news special correspondent dr. alok patel talking all things medical dr. patel you wanted to respond to some tweets today. i always want to respond to tweets. i just had to pick out a few i would respond to so if we throw them up we can read them and we can respond to them kristen. don't fight too hard there. okay, but let's let's go ahead and talk about them. i gotta i could be professional with my with my fighting. so here's one you know, and this is a very popular sentiment right now. the new shot is gonna be released on the population without any human clinical trial. they can't be bothered to produce even fraudulent data. it's gonna get e-way though. there's no emergency. you plan to take it. you may just deserve whatever happens to you. now, there's there's obviously some frustration and there's a negative sentiment in this tweet right now. but again we talked about why there's no human clinical trial data because they're bassiness off of what they previously saw what they buy valid vaccine and with 600 doses that have already been given it isn't realistic to be able to get human trial data

on this one right now with enough time is the exact same reason why there isn't a human trial done every single year for the flu shot and chris. i think this is an important point to talk about because we may very well see in annual covid-19 vaccine in the same way. we see a seasonal flu shot. they may be even be combined. and right now we're still having 500 deaths a day from covid-19. those death rates stretched across the respiratory season may match what we currently see right now with influenza. we're only about half of americans are getting their shot right over. i can't wait until it's combined into one shot and just just give it to me once you know in the fall. all right. hey, how closely matched are human and mouse trial data in vaccines or treatments where both are tested generally? generally speaking humans are not mice and vice versa. so you guys you know, i may act like a mouse sometimes okay with that. sometimes we call my daughter alora mouse because she has that little squeaking thing, but you

know, but mice is that's really an early part of animal testing and looking at immune responses and how something works, but you can't jump from mice to humans. you can grow you can use it as a point of reference in terms of safety in terms of generating antibody response and then moving on to a human clinical trial which is why when the announcement was first made by fiser moderna, they didn't talk about what they're gonna do in terms of safety. they mention that hey we have some data and mice which is not sufficient. this is exactly why the fda and the cdc's committee the advisory committee for immunization practices really looked at the biivalent trial from fisa margaret, and i mentioned the hundreds of millions of americans so my it's not enough. don't forget about that. they looked at the bi-valent data. okay a big news today the government's free test program and you know whether you go on the website order them and they come be a usps. so that's too bad and you know now that this has happened where can people get their tasks for free. you know people were told that

today would be the last day too. i believe it's covid test.gov. yeah, if you go to the website, it's specifically says tests are no longer available because of a lack of congressional funding and i think it's important that we understand that prevention treatment equity and all still requires funding to have these things happen. and so anyone out there who's struggling to get a test who may need one. they're still local resources if you go to the website, they have some links there that are helpful in terms of numbers. you can call you potentially could go through your insurance company and they're still free testing sites available. some states have even announced that they're gonna continue a free testing program. but again what the white house is repeatedly said is that they're saving some of this funding just in case there is a search and we have another shortage of supplies. okay and kristen if i can add this is a concern regarding vaccines as well. not only with distribution of vaccines, but also with what the infrastructure looks like and making sure that they're giving out efficiently what is potential gonna happen if you run out of funding with a surge this winter, right? i don't want to think about it, but yet we have to confront that. okay, so i just want to make

sure the message is not we're not giving these tests out for free anymore because it's kind of all over and the need is not there anymore to test. it that is an important message to get out. is that the white house was clear and saying yes the need the urgency to get a test might be different than it was one year ago two years ago. now that people have access to vaccines. they're hopefully getting them but also this is because of a lack of congressional funding and the white house saying we need to figure out where we're gonna put our resources. okay before we let you go got to ask you about a new new colorectal cancer study really important. and i'm glad you bring this up because again, this is something that a lot of us have come in contact with and says ultra processed food. so this is a massive study that came out of the bmj a scientific journal it looked at over 200 about 200,000 people follow them over the course of many years and found that and men specifically who were in the upper 20% of how much ultra processed foods they consumed it nearly 30% increase risk of getting colo -- cancer even

after the researchers controlled for for lifestyle and your bmi, so kristin when it comes to ultra process foods, there's a dangerous triad here. they're affordable. they're convenient and i'm gonna admit it they're delicious, but they're also devoid of actual nutrients. they're high in sugar chemicals. there's not much fiber in them. and you know, we don't need ultra processed foods. they're inherently on healthy. so i hope this study in addition to the dozens of others out there are getting people to pay more attention to the quality of the food. they're getting and gets public. c makers to pay attention the fact that we need accessible affordable healthier food options for sure, and this has me thinking dr. patel. thanks for bringing into our attention. really appreciate it. thank you. have a nice labor day weekend. you too. all right, that's hard though with the triple digit temperatures that we're seeing. we have a flex alert starting in about 40 minutes and we have a spare the air alert now for tomorrow. it's a triple threat for the holiday weekend. we'll check in with

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almost here gateway. in fact right now as we look live in santa cruz for you. it's typically the perfect time to hit the beach, but if that's your plan get ready for some extreme heat. we're tracking a heat wave that's set to bring triple digit temperatures to much of california and the bay area this weekend. let's get right to meet her. i'll just mike nico with a look at what to expect mike. all right, kristen. hi everybody. yeah a little bit of a reprieve today though if you've been outside in most neighborhoods, it feels much better than it did yesterday. however, that is going to be short-lived as we talked about all week. in fact look at these temperatures anywhere from five to about 11 degrees cooler. so, where is that put us in the range where if you have vigorous activities do them now? don't wait until the weekend when it gets hot once again any outdoor chores do them now do them through the evening hours when it's even more comfortable and it is now there are a few

places like fairfield and you can see out around brent where 104 and 100 and 101 in ukiah and that's because the area of high pressure ret. just a little bit to our east as an area of low pressure passes us over the ocean to the west and the north and that's why we had this little bit of a dip. all right since the last time we talked. good news for the coasts in the san francisco no more heat advisories for you right now. it's mainly the marin coastal range and the san francisco bay shoreline now, they're under that heat advisor and it also starts a day later. we've pushed it back till sunday at 11 am and it goes through only monday at 8 am but anywhere in this orange area highs could be around 95 to nearly 103 degrees and of course outside of that area is where the most dangerous heat is going to be but again, we've pushed it a day later to 11 o'clock sunday and this continues to go through at least a clock tuesday solano county. it goes to a clock wednesday. i wouldn't be surprised if the

rest of us don't join solano county because it looks like this heat is going to hang around a little bit longer than what we originally thought so that flex alert. maybe you're wondering well, it's not that hot if a look at the rest of the state, it is definitely hot 80s and 90s and socal the 100s out in the desert and through the central valley and it's going to get even hotter in these areas over the weekend. so it wouldn't be surprised if more flex alerts are issued as those temperatures will range from the upper 80s and tahoe and then 100's everywhere until you get to san diego where the 90s are going to hang out now if you want to go to the beaches tomorrow is a spare the air day unfortunately, but if you can get there look at that 60s and 70s a little bit warmer for sunday. you can see mid-60s even a few mid 70s unless you're around the monterey bay and then we're up into the upper 80s quickly want to show you the fire danger because with hotter temperatures and fire danger will increase but notice as we go through saturday during the evening hours it gets high to even just a small area very high in the altamonte pass and then sunday,

it doesn't get much worse than high. but what does that mean kristen? can i have fires outside? gosh, i hope not because it is going to so dry that it. good spark easily a fire. we just don't have the winds and that's why there's no fire weather watch right now. got it. of course the spare the air day, right? that's tomorrow. not today rightly tomorrow for mainly the south bay that well. it's a spare there for everybody, but it's the south bay and our inland east bay neighborhoods that are likely to have poor air quality. and that means those that are most sensitive the young the elderly those with you know, asthma or lung condition copd, whatever that may be they could have the biggest issue trying to outside during the afternoon hours when the ozone is the highest but also the heat's going to come back tomorrow. so there's two reasons why you probably shouldn't be outside during the middle of the afternoon tomorrow. all right, just a little information on flexler folks. it starts at four o'clock. this is the third straight right? they're asking us to conserve because the heat will certainly put a strain on power grid as everybody runs through ac. so mike, let's talk about some

of the key ways here to conserve energy sitting in the dark. i mean really we literally did that last night when i got home. we had all the lights off. we had the tv on that was about the course. we were all using our phones, but they were charged but the least amount of electricity you can use between four and nine and it's just every little bit that helps because our maximum i had this pulled up our maximum across the stage about 56,000 megawatts. and right now we're inching just above 44,000 megawatts. so and that is expected to climb even more as we head throughout the afternoon and people come home. turn on the air conditioners or start cooking or try to maybe do some laundry or wash the dishes just if you can don't okay? but what about the barbecue that everybody loves. mm-hmm. that's peak heat there. don't do it. i wouldn't be i wouldn't do it. hey, i don't want to sit around that heat and grill when it's

going to be already a hundred hundred and ten degrees. it's gonna be even hotter around that grill, but if you do make sure you have some water or some extinguisher close by in case something does happen. you'll be able to it out quickly. right. thank you so much mike. appreciate it. of course. we'll see you back here at four. okay? all right a reminder you can get our live newscast breaking news weather and more with our abc7 bay area streaming tv app. it's available on apple tv google tv fire tv and roku just search abc 7 bay area and download it now. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. i was injured in a car crash. we'll be right back. i had no idea how much my case was worth. i called the barnes firm. when a truck hit my son, i had so many questions about his case. i called the barnes firm. it was the best call i could've made. your case is often worth more than insurance offers.

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duckduckgo: much for joining us today on this interactive show getting answers will be here every weekday at 3:00 on air and on live stream answering your questions. you'll want to stay tuned for abc 7 news at 4:00 or much more

on the holiday heatwave and how you can prepare now world news tonight with david muir is next and i'll see you back here for the. what federal agents retried don documents mixed with magazines, newspaper clippings and, clothing. authorities finding nearly four dozen empty folders labeled classified, raising new questions about whether documents are missing. trump's own attorney general bill barr today slamming the former president. pierre thomas insstanding by. president biden setting the stage for the midterms. his blistering speech condemning