civil and environmental engineering at uc berkeley, who focuses on transportation technology to get their insight into the biggest safety issues involving robotaxi is this after cruise vehicle got into a crash with a construction vehicle last night in san francisco. also, higher education doesn't always mean a higher paycheck. we'll explore a new study that measures how well institute loans really help their students improve, prove their socioeconomic status. and we learn about the educational paths that are shown to bring the most bang for the buck. but first, new variants, new cases, and a new vaccine. it's time for a covid tune up. there are several significant development , so we want to go beyond the headlines and keep you informed. joining us live now is ucsf infectious disease specialist dr. monica gandhi. dr. gandhi, it's great to see you. thank you. this is you're the perfect person to address this. we just learned that a new covid vaccine

is expected to be available at drugstores and clinics in mid september. what is this latest formulation? >> so the latest formulation of the booster vaccine is actually directed against xpb. so let's remember our variants. omicron was the original variant family. it was identified died on november 26th, 2021. we all remember it was thanksgiving. then after that, everything has stayed in the omicron family. if it wasn't, they would name a new greek letter. so the w.h.o. has declared all what are called sub variants, and it started with ba one and it was ba two, and then it kept on going. and now we were on xb 1.16 for a long time and then two came out recently. one is called five and one's called ba 286, but they're all omicron family. so what's coming out for the booster is the xb booster. it's not exactly g

five, but it's closely related and ba 286 is a little more mutated. but the lucky thing is it's not that different. and these boosters are likely to be justified. >> so how effective do you think it will be against the strains that we have now? >> so it really depends on what you're trying to avoid. so essentially, there are two things that happen with covid. one is infection and one is severe disease. actually three hospitalizations, deaths, which was the terrible thing about covid. that's all the vaccines have protected against those terrible outcomes. and who has needed the recurrent boosters are older people. we have had lots and lots of studies that those who are still at risk after two vaccine doses. there was a huge lancet study of 30 million people or older people, all people on immunosuppressants and people with comorbidities. so the question is, can you boost your way out of all

infections? and unfortunate early we have not seen that all the boosters prevent all infections. and that really is because antibodies go up and they come down and variants are changing so the antibodies don't work as well. antibody does protect you up here. cellular immunity protects you down here in the lungs and so they're going to be effective for severe disease. but as but how long they're effective against not just any infection with covid that will have to see. the protection has lasted only about two months. in previous boosters . >> okay. so given that right, when you look at the whole landscape, you look at we are seeing a little bit more in terms of the numbers, the infections. kids are going back to school and then you say, look, if you're healthy, young, young, no immuno deficient, you know, anything and you've gotten covid maybe once, maybe you got your original two plus one booster. would you go get this new booster when it comes out

late december or september? >> so i'm actually following the w.h.o. guidance on this because the w.h.o. has been super clear about their guidance and the cdc , to be honest, has been a little more confused. and the u.k. and the w.h.o. and every country and the w.h.o. put out these guidance in may 28, 2023. it's called w.h.o. sage guidance. there guidance is that people over 65 people on immunosuppressive daetz and people with multi comorbidities should get the booster. that's the uk guidance. that's canada guidance. that's european guidance recommending it for everybody. no other country is doing but the united states and the cdc director at one point said we like to keep our messages simple. the problem with keeping your messages simple is we didn't get the uptake of the bivalent booster that they would have wanted. and what we really need to do is focus on high risk groups. so i would encourage people, if they're over 65, i'm not any of

these groups actually. but if you're over 65 on immunosuppressants or you have multiple comorbidities, you should get this booster. >> got it. okay that does give us some clarity. thanks for that. this will be the first time vaccines will be provided through the commercial market. what does that mean? >> well, i have to say, you know , i wrote a piece on this in medpage because i think it's a little unfair that they're charging so much for this vaccine because actually moderna and pfizer got a lot of supplementation from taxpayer money to develop their vaccines . and they're charging about $130. so that's a whole other issue. but i will say that now, unlike you, just going to any pharmacy and you don't even have to show that you have insurance because that's because we used to give out free vaccines. now you're going to go through your insurance route. luckily the biden administration has committed for those who do not have insurance, for those, for example, who are undocumented or other states that where

insurance has been difficult, that you that they will pay for the vaccine until 2024. so if you're in that high risk group, you can go to a pharmacy even if you don't have insurance, and that will be paid for. but for anyone who has insurance, you go through your regular doctor route. >> do you think most companies, insurance companies will carry that or will pay for that? >> this is a very good question because since the w.h.o. and the rest of the world is recommending the booster for only high risk populations, it is possible that an insurance company is looking at a 35 year old who is healthy, will not pay for it. so we're going to have to see. this is the first time in history the us and the w.h.o. and other countries have been diverging the whole time with boosters, boosters have always been recommended for high risk people and other countries. but this is the first time we're confronting insurance companies looking at it. >> wow. that is different. okay i want to know if there are new treatments, therapeutics out

there for people who catch covid. is paxlovid still kind of the go to and is that still recommended for a lot of people? >> it is. so i would say, you know, the paxlovid is now it's really clearly defined by the fda who needs it. it's that same group that we just talked about. people are at risk for severe disease and they've really spelled out over 65 immunosuppressants and people who have multiple co-morbidities . there was a trial called epic sr, which was looking at, well, what if you don't have any of those risk factors? what if you just kind of want to shorten your course of symptoms or make it better? and unfortunately, epic sr did not show any efficacy. meaning if you are not at high risk for having a severe disease with covid, it looks like paxlovid doesn't help you, but my 88 year old father who got covid last month, is had enough risk factors that we gave him paxlovid. it is still the absolute drug of choice. it's

the only drug. there's one called molnupiravir, but it doesn't work as well in molnupiravir is really phasing out. there is a new antiviral that are made by shionogi that's being studied and we're very excited about that one because it drops the yucky taste aging component of paxlovid, which is called ritonavir and also ritonavir can have drug drug interactions with other medications. so i'm really excited about this new protease inhibitor that's being studied. and there's also another nucleoside analog. and i think this time next winter we're going to have two more oral pills that you can use for covid . >> all right. that's all good news for those who don't like that metallic taste, that paxlovid tends to have. dr. monica gandhi, always great talking with you. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> next, has the future of transportation stalled? for the second time in as many weeks, a cruise driverless car was involved in a collision in san francisco. ahead, a civil engineer at cal who focuses on

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with either it's the actually really seriously best you get it. >> the right mattress matters we'll find yours. >> mattress firm. >> all right, let's talk about this. >> bring your friends. >> this has so much impact. every community feels it right? here we are. >> yeah. bring your friends. >> another day, another incident for a robotaxi operating in san francisco last night at the intersection of gary and gough, a cruise car and a backhoe somehow collided, resulting in the cruise car taking on damage in the rear and sitting paralyzed in that intersection. it's unclear which vehicle was at fault, but it comes just one week after another cruise car was involved in an accident with a fire truck responding to an emergency. all of this continues to raise questions over whether the cpuc greenlit cruise and waymo for commercial rollout prematurely. joining us live now

to not to answer that question, but to help us better understand the behavior, the strengths and the weaknesses of robotaxis and how to integrate them into the world of human is. we have scott mora, the faculty director of uc berkeley's partnerships for advanced transportation technology, and brandon berry, toronto, that is pardon me, taxi driver in san francisco, taxi workers alliance board. thank you very much both for joining us. good to be with you. kristin scott, i'll start with you. >> thank you for. yeah your group at uc berkeley researches intelligent and sustainable transportation systems. >> you know, a whole lot about autonomous vehicles. what's your assessment of what happened last night? >> well, last night is certainly another example of the challenges of trying to integrate robot taxis into our system. uh, you know, rather than speaking on last night's specifically, i think, uh, you know, what's becoming clear to

us in a very obvious way is humans are incredibly good at driving in streets. you know, our taxi drivers are incredible in terms of just being able to navigate complex situations. there's really a hive mind that people do in terms of understanding how their actions affect the actions of other vehicles, how pedestrians might react, how other vulnerable road users might react. and we're certainly witnessing the growing pains of these companies, you know, trying to embed themselves into our transportation system. yeah in terms of growing pains, you know, there have been several incidents captured on video. >> the chronicle today features an article with taxi drivers who detailed the issues that they say they've seen on the road involving robo taxis. i'm just going to put up the top five issues for you here. one random stops and bricking. that's kind of where they're all piled up together. two mid street drop offs, three trouble with detours , us four confusion over road

rules like to cautious making left turns five can't improvise like getting around construction zones or out of fire trucks way. those are from taxi drivers experiences. barry i know you've been out there. i know you've seen a lot of crews and waymo vehicles, which of these ring true to you? have you experienced any of those? >> all of those all of those last night? i can't speak specifically that the we call them driverless vehicles or autonomous vehicles or robo cars. we don't call them taxis because because they don't play the same role as taxis do in the city. however they're what most likely happened is that the cruise vehicle needed to move over to make that left turn onto onto star king way. in order to do that, it had to pull over it . it goes on a set route and it has no choice but to try and get

over there. so instead of recognizing that this other vehicle or it was going out probably a slower pace, it cutting or a fast pace, it cut in front of the vehicle and thus causing the damage it did to that vehicle. so this is this is a problem that that the software does not really recognize the all the surrounding conditions, but it has a set route. it has to go. and in order to do that, it has to make a sudden move to that next lane. i've watched them before. hold up traffic behind them because as they have to wait for the for the traffic in the lane next to them to clear in most cases. in this case, it it probably was a little too impatient and pulled over a little too quickly and didn't give a chance for the backhoe to respond quickly. >> scott this sounds like, you know you got something that's programed to behave a certain way or dealing with the unpredict ability of humans and the contingency rs of the real

world around them. how do you suggest they rectify that? what can be done to kind of help the two understand each other? one, that's to act a certain way and one that's really quite random as humans are? >> yeah, that really is a fundamental question. how can these robocars operate in environments with with humans who who themselves are uncertain but also responding to the vehicles, the way to do this and to be fair, the puc has tried to structure this to the best of their ability is to progressively increase the challenge. and you know, set uh- metrics for which these vehicles can operate safely in increasing more complex scenarios. so for example, prior to having 24/7 operations, the cruise vehicles would operate at night where generally the streets are more empty, things are simpler, there's less drivers. and so

they they need to demonstrate themselves as being safe and not causing more congestion and stress in those scenarios. right? so that's really the key is how do we from a regulatory standpoint and even from the private companies themselves, how do they stage these tests in a progressive way for which they can meet the challenge of being safe and not creating more congestion and add more stress? how to do that well though, is non-trivial as we are experiencing. >> right. and i guess is that i know it's not rhetorical. i mean, i know there's actually the search for that answer as to how to scaffold, how to get there. but right now, you have the dmv asking those companies to cut their fleets in half and they have until they kind of figure things out. are few of those cars out there actually, the way to get there, so to speak, or is it quite the opposite where you almost need everything else and more cars to be connected and be smart, quote unquote, to kind of get there to

where we want to be? yeah i think there's two parts to this that we can focus on. >> one is that what is the metric we use to assess safety? safety is not an easily measurable quantity. we can talk about accidents in collisions, but there's also just stress and congestion that's created from people who are inside the transportation system that is not very easily measurable. the second thing is we are also understanding that to enable all these these automated transportation options, it would really help to have not just the vehicles themselves be automated, but as you mentioned, kristen uh- more connected technologies within the city. so for example, there was the event last week with the emergency response vehicle, the fire truck that got into a collision with one of these vehicles that if we had connected technologies that could notify avs, even human

driven vehicles of these emergency response vehicles, then that would certainly help. and there already is some initial technologies in that direction. i think what we're witnessing now is that this becomes just ever more important that when we remove the human driver from the driver's seat because they can figure out these complex situations, humans are good at dealing with the you know, 99.9, nine, 9% probability situation robocars are it's more difficult for them, right? >> there's a lot more work to be done. but i appreciate both of your input and insight into this conversation. barry taranto of the san francisco taxi workers alliance board and of course, scott mora, the director of uc berkeley's. pat, thank you so much. thank you very much. >> thank you. thanks, kristin. >> a new way of measuring value in higher education focuses on how well schools serve their low income students. up next, we'll talk with third way. the think

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electric dodge hornet rt performance electrified for scandal deals and lawsuits over spots that the nation's most elite colleges. >> for all those battles, we may actually be missing the big picture. according to a new report, it's not harvard or stanford that's doing the most for economic mobility in our society. it's actually the cal state universities of the world . joining us live now to talk about this, michelle dimino, deputy director of education at third way, the think tank that did the study. michelle, thanks for your time. >> thank you so much for having me. >> so this is really important study because families are always wondering what is the value of attending college or particular college and your group has a unique way to measure that value. tell us about it. >> sure. so we've developed a college rating system of our own that we call the economic mobility index. and what it does is it takes a look under the hood at how well colleges are doing at helping their students move up the income ladder. so

where a lot of other college rankings focus on prestige, we're putting return on investment at the center of how we think about value and schools that do well on the economic mobility index are keeping their tuition costs low. they're creating pathway to college for students that have high financial need, and they're really setting students up for success to get a fast return on their investment. after they graduate. >> so let's take a look at a map that you have here that reflects the economic mobility index and how bay area universities look. let's talk about san francisco state. this is a good one, right, in terms of mobility, upward mobility. >> absolutely. so across the board, california public colleges and universities dominate on the economic mobility index. eight of the top 25 schools in our ranking are cal state system schools and 22 cal state schools as well as all eight ucs are in our top tier or top 20% of colleges nationwide. so looking specifically at san francisco state, that comes in at number 52 on our list this

year. so students with high financial need who are attending san francisco state, they're able to recoup their costs within a year. and a half of attending of graduating, which is an outcome i think students would be very satisfied with. >> now let's go over and look at uc berkeley or berkeley also does very well on our rankings this year. >> they come in at 186 out of 1400 schools and low income students attending berkeley are able to recoup their cost of attendance in less than a year, which is really outstanding. is that what that years to pay down total net cost? >> is it is, yes. >> so we looked at students return on investment in terms of how quickly they're able to recoup what they spent on tuition based on how much they are earning after graduation. okay. >> now let's switch to arguably one of the most elite universities in the nation, stanford. how does that do in terms of mobility index? it might be surprising to hear that stanford, which tends to be at the top of a lot of college rankings, comes in around number 400 on this rating.

>> and that's because while stanford does deliver excellent return on investment for students that have financial need, it doesn't enroll that many students from lower income backgrounds. so it's not having the same type of impact on upward mobility. >> i see. so for a single individual student who goes there, they do get that upward boost. and you're not saying they don't get bang for their buck there, but you're saying overall the cal state's really are the workhorses, the engines that really drive society upward and lifting up the bottom. so if that is the case, then what does that mean? what are the implications, i guess, in terms of policy, in terms of where the state puts their money, where i guess families put their money, that's exactly right. >> and for states, i think the economic mobility index really emphasizes how essential public colleges are in educating the workforce of their regions. so ensuring that they're well funded and that they can support everything necessary to get students through to a degree, no matter what their financial circumstances were coming in.

that should really be a priority for policymakers and then for students and their families. college is one of the biggest investments they're going to make in their lifetime. so this gives them another data point to use to consider their college options and understand the type of return on investment they could expect to receive from going to a given school. >> and it's fascinating. you don't look at the average income upon graduation in the students first jobs, right? that's pretty that's typically used in these rankings right. >> so we're comparing the earnings that students have after graduation to what they would have received in their state if they just had a college diploma. so looking at sort of that counterfactual for how much they're actually their earnings are impacted by attending a particular state. well this is fascinating. >> michel danino, deputy director of education at third wave. people want to see the whole report and interact with the map and the different universities. you can check it out at third wave. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> a reminder, you can get our live newscast, breaking news, weather and more with our abc7 bay area streaming tv app. it's

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