>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc7 news. >> you are watching getting answers on abc7. every day, we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and get you answers in real-time. there are new developments in the controversy involving san franciso mayor london breedand last weekend's storm. the san francisco standard is reporting she traveled to las vegas a day after the city was swamped by record rainfall. they join us with more in 10 minutes. a look at the stark reality of the homelessness crisis in the

bay area. the inspiration behind a new film and the sneak peek. a story gripping the nation. buffalo bills player who collapsed during monday night football, a-game many of you are watching on abc7, is making remarkable progress in his recovery. the incident is also raising new questions about cardiac health and the phenomenon that caused his collapse. joining us to talk more about that and other health headlines is dr. patel. always nice to see you. look how on brand you are in the hospital. >> i'm trying to have the right balance of news dapper and being a method actor in the hospital. >> learn damar hamlin suffered this cardiac arrest. he's 24 years old, in the nfl, probably one of the fittest

people in pro sports. he suffered something potentially called komodo cordis. what is that, and how could it have played a role? >> bravo on your lan pronunciation. it is a known phenomenon that can happen. three unfortunate events need to happen, you need to have a substantial amount of force to the right part of the chest, add a very specific time in the electrical cycle. if it happens, it can send somebody into cardiac arrhythmia. it can lead to cardiac arrest. that is what doctors are thinking may have happened to damar hamlin. it is rare. we do see it. in the mid 90's, the national komodo cordis registry was founded to better understand these cases and who was most likely to suffer. it is mostly adolescent teen boys in competitive sports where there is a high projectile object involved like lacrosse,

hockey, or baseball. >> it has to be so many layers of padding and things like that. moving to the next question, a lot of discussion on social media, athletes going into cardiac arrest. has there been an increase like people are buzzing about, or is it taking off because of twitter? >> i will say on both ends, there has been an increased amount of conversation about the need for everyone to learn cpr. cpr by all means saved damar hamlin's life, the quick acting by those on the field doing the chest compressions and restoring blood flow to the brain. i'm glad you brought up the conversation about whether or not there has been this increase in sudden cardiac arrest in athletes. there is some noise on twitter that this may be related to the covid-19 vaccine. there is no evidence at all.

the sudden cardiac arrest -- related to the vaccine. we have seen this for years in athletes. i have seen cases like this. it can happen from a lot of different causes. it is important for people to understand where they are getting their information from, to not fear monger, and learn cpr. >> the joys of the internet. we were looking at video of people making chest compressions when you were talking. it is interesting. i remember feeling so helpless when i watched him on the field. i felt like the cpr had been going on for a long time. some of the inspiring aftermath after the incident was not only did his toy drive get something like $7 million, the american heart association saying people are suddenly starting to care about cpr, there is a spike in people who want to learn it.

tell me the importance of it and what people can do, how they can go about learning this basic skill. >> anyone out there who knows cpr can save a life. if they see someone go into cardiac arrest. it can be anywhere, at home, at your work, on the street. i know the story of all four of those were someone's life has been saved by cpr. i myself see teenaged sports fields, but all ages whose lives had been saved by cpr. over 300,000 cases of cardiac arrest have been outside of a clinical setting. only about 40 to actually receive cpr, the difference between life or death. there are ways you can sign up for a cpr class in your neighborhood. go online, to the american heart association, find a course near you. i recommend people do it right

now if you aren't already comfortable doing cpr. the majority of americans are not. it is around 70% of people not comfortable doing cpr. >> let's hope we can improve that percentage. just saw a hea. a trainer is being credited for saving his life on the field. that small piece of knowledge can really save a life. i want to get to shifting some gears, talking about covid, the flu. 2023. are you seeing a post holiday surge? >> we are seeing a post holiday surge, but this is coming from a better place than a month ago. about a month ago, looking at the end of november and december, we were at astronomical levels of rsv and of the worst flu season 10. numbers are still high. fingers crossed. they are starting to decline for influenza and rsv.

covid-19 hospitalizations have risen. you see a new variant. another variant that according to lab studies might be able to evade some monoclonal antibodies. some of the treatments we have still work. and the vaccine still protects people, as well. no evidence the variant will be more severe. people should be on the lookout. those who are vulnerable are still at the increased risk. unfortunately, we still have a lot of virus in our community. >> one final and encouraging headline. the fda granted accelerated approval. what is different about this, should people be encouraged? >> i have been testing with my geriatric colleagues. in a field where there has not been a lot of progress, it represents progress.

according to the studies, it may be able to slow some of the cognitive decline. it may pinpoint the underlying disease rather than treating the symptoms. more studies need to be done. it is very expensive. we need to see if medicare will cover it. they need to ask their specialist if they have questions. but it is a step forward in science. >> as someone with family affected by alzheimer's, it is encouraging and exciting news. always a pleasure. >> happy friday. coming up, a new twist in the battle brewing between mayor london breed and the national weather service. our media partners will join us our media partners will join us to share what they oh ms. flores, what would we do without you? leader of many, and pet wrangler too. you report to your boss, every afternoon. so beautiful. so becoming a student again might seem impossible.

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>> san francisco mayor london breed's timing is being criticized after she participated in two celebratory events as her city experienced record flooding. our media partners uncovered the story of her attending a lavish new year's eve party, and flew to las vegas to watch the raiders and 49ers in a private luxury box. joining us is josh kane. always so good having you with us. describe the events she participated in. it sounds soldier areas. >> good afternoon -- it sounds so luxurious. >> good afternoon. there was a lavish new year's eve party over at the st. joseph art society in san francisco.

feet. some of the top city officials were at the event, including district attorney brooke jenkins. former mayor willie brown. also, someone caught up in the corruption scandal, victor macros, a former realist rate -- real a crged wi war crimes. that was part one of the mayor's new year's eve revelry. part two was the morning of new year's day, which was hours after massive flooding hit san franciscon 'eve. she flew to las vegas and attended the 49ers and raiders game with a very famousr in the bay area, e-40. >> the optics are not good. i thought about senator ted cruz and his trip to cancun in 2021. a state of emergency, record cold, people dying. the criticism was it was tone deaf.

what did you want to achieve by bringing her actions to life? >> i appreciate you asking that. there was no motivation bringing those things to light. i was seeking to find out what was going on between the mayor and the weather service. january 3, she held a press conference and said the city was not given good information about the rainfall that would happen in san francisco. they expected less then an inch, they got more than five inches. that ended up flooding areas of the mission, soma, and other neighborhoods. people were woedotavmo preparats re place i fnc. conference and slams the nws. i wanted to follow up on what was going on in that situation. in the reporting, it became clear she was not in town on new year's day.

that is how finding out she was in a private luxury box, questions about how she paid for the ticket, that still have not been answered. the mayor's office said she paid for her ticket. there are gift restrictions on elected officials and the money they can receive in gifts. they say she bought her ticket. it would be a pricey seat in the luxury box at the 50 yard line in las vegas. it was more trying to get a sense of how connected she was to the operations. i would not compare the situation to what ted cruz left, which was a massive catastrophe. this was serious flooding in the city, something with the mayor having the harsh words she did, i was curious about why she did not come out sooner, and it is because she was not in town. >> i appreciate you providing the context. as a fellow journalist, people usually don't understand how the story gets to an audience. i want to talk about what if.

what if mayor breed had stayed in the city? it doesn't feel like the city's response to the storm would have changed in any way. >> i don't know if the response would have changed. department level response, the boots on the ground will be the people that help those infected by flooding and storm damage. when the issue gets more severe, the buck stops with the mayor. the fact she wasn't here, she had an active mayor. had things gotten worse, we like to think she would have changed her travel plans. i had not had a chance to interview the mayor. it is one of the deals where if the situation gets worse, it ends up with the person at the top. >> josh kane, appreciate your reporting. we'll i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program.

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crisis in the bay area. now the whole country is about to see it. dr. robert barb it has advis three presidential administrations on homelessness and just wrapped up a tour across america documenting the prices. he spoke to jobina fortson about what he saw in the bay area and his advice on what we can do. >> one is a documentary where we did a bus tour 21 days across america to see the good and the bad, what is working, what is not working. that is a prelude to the movie no address we hope will be coming out next fall that will be a scripted feature film. we are working on both sides. a documentary, and the feature piece. we are so excited. we hope it will raise awareness, create a call to action, and help improve policies across

america. >> i would imagine you're feature film is influenced by the documentary and what you found in real life? >> very much so. we have a great script writer. she was on the bus. 12 of us got on the bus with the film crew and went across the country. we were trying to make it authentic in terms of the feature piece. a lot of what we learned on the road is going into the feature piece. and the documentary shows us as we went through the bus tour and what we were learning. sometimes it is not just what you learn, it is what we are finding out. the places that are good and places that are not doing so well. >> they bay area was one of your stops. what did you find and how did we compare to other cities? >> to be honest, sadly we w

several locations in san francisco. we went on blocks where the entire block was on fentanyl. and i mean everybody on the block. we would have about 80 people, some 70, some 50. everybody was in some form of passing out using, getting ready to use, one of the most sad, striking, how could this be happening in america? the fentanyl epidemic in particular at cities like san francisco, l.a., phoenix, new york are just horrific what is going on. >> it is. i'm curious if you could e think of something. that is the issue, people have been throwing millions, in some cases, billions of dollars at

this issue. everyone has some sort of thought after seeing it firsthand yourself. do you have any recommendations? >> absolutely. right now, we have to focus on substance use and untreated mental illness. we have to stop talking about housing. housing is an important part of the equation. if that is the only thing you talk about, nothing will work. a person will get a house and it will not stick, it will not stay. the california policy lab really good research organization at berkeley at ucla had marked it at 78% of people experiencing untreated mental illness, 75% had substance abuse disorders. until you treat those issues, nothing else you will do will work. you have to treat this almost as a medical crisis and start

really focusing on the untreated mental illness and substitutes that goes with it. that has to be our starting position. sadly, you talk about the billions of dollars being spent all over california, san francisco, and l.a., most of it is like 4% or 5% go to mental illness and substance abuse. 95% goes to other things. we almost have to flip the ratio. >> what are your thoughts on this? a hot button issue in the city. a judge blogs homeless sweeps in san francisco. what is your take? >> those are things that are indicators that you have big problems. candidly, there are gimmicks on the edge. they won't work unless you work with a really rooted issue, substance abuse and untreated

mental illness. when you fail to work on the biggest issues, all of these issues that come up on the side, candidly, none of them will improve the situation at all. it will not make it better, it will not make it worse. my view is stop worrying about gimmicks, stuff that is really minor, and you have to start saying if you go on an average street in san francisco, and almost 100% of the street is on fentanyl, that should be our number one target, what we're are doing about fentanyl, not sweeps and all of these other things people talk about. those are just the endings on top of the real problem. >> you travel to so many cities. it is -- i'm curious if there is a city you visited where you have some preconceived notion it will not be great here and they

were doing a lot better, or even a city where their numbers were one thing a few years ago, and they made significant strides, we are trying to find anyone doing something to improve the situation. country have really figured it out, really doing well. san antonio has reduced street-level homelessness by over 85% for 12 years now. it wasn't a gimmick, they worked on the root issues. places as small as fort smith, arkansas have seen a very similar reduction. they had major problems. it is a small, medium-sized rural area. they also see near 90% reduction of street-level homelessness. they've had that for six years. there are small or big cities figuring it out. you have to fundamentally change

your paradigm and start to work on the root causes and not the superficial or secondary or tertiary effects. you have to work on the primary effects -- issue that created homelessness in the first place. those places are seeing dramatic reductions next door to some cities that are not. compare san antonio versus austin. san antonio has had a dramatic reduction. austin has almost increased 300%. they have virtually the same demographic and they are right next door cities. on that. i know we have to let you go. as someone who has been to both cities, we do know austin is a little different in the sense that the cost of living has skyrocketed with the tech boom and everything happening. what is the difference -- tell us what san antonio did -- i

know every issue is different depending on the city, each city has something they are battling, what was the difference? >> it is important to note the austin problem all occurred before the cost of living increased. the big bump they saw was not an economic bump, it was also a substance use bump. untreated mental illness that is directly tied to co-presenting substance use disorders. if you keep thinking there is an economic issue, we will keep getting the growth we are getting. it is not undocumented or he issue on the street. it is a substance use issue. that is what you have to address. san antonio chose to address it. austin chose not to address it. >> i see where you are coming from. this is fascinating. looking forward to seeing your

work. can you tell people where and when they can watch both pieces? >> we hope the documentary will be at the end of the summer, early fall. and the feature piece, no address, will be out hopefully the thanksgiving christmas timeframe. >> congratulations and thank you for the work. >> while we are on the topic, drug overdose deaths are on the rise in the u.s. there is an innovative program in canada saving lives by giving users a safe place to get high. could it work here? tara campbell travels to vancouver to find out. watch injecting hope, streaming sunday on the abc7

>> thank you for joining us for

this edition of getting answers. we will be here every weekday at 3:00, answering questions from experts across the bay area. world news tonight is next. we will see you next for abc7 tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. the school shooting. police say a 6-year-old with a gun. the teacher reportedly in critical condition. and the breaking news on capitol hill tonight -- the house speaker standoff. after four days of voting, tonight the news coming in now, the number of holdouts switching, now voting for kevin mccarthy. not enough to win, but will he get the votes by later tonight? what our rachel scott has learned. also breaking, that horrific school shooting in virginia.mesg thr teaerwh critical coitn.ellis

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