on our focus on equity. yet a new study shows that a huge pay gap exists between people of different races and genders in the state. we'll get details

from the state civil rights department director. also how would you like to have a digital driver's license just like your covid vaccine proof? the digital license can live on your phone. we'll talk to our editor in chief of our media partner, the san francisco standard, about how you can get one. you can also vote in our poll on whether you would get one, whether you'd want to do that. after hearing the pros and cons. so get ready to go to abc7 news.com com slash vote but first, with covid making a comeback as kids go back to school, many of you are holding on to those home tests right that are older and you're wondering are they still effective, especially against current variants? and what if the tests are old? here to answer those and other health questions, ucsf infectious disease specialist dr. peter chin-hong. hey, dr. chin-hong, nice of you to join us. >> thanks for having me on. kristen. >> hey, are the cases up after labor day? >> cases are up. we're at the sixth consecutive week of increased cases in all metrics.

so wastewater visits, test positivity, hospitalizations. they're all up. >> okay, so as such, like people are starting to think, hey, should i take a test? right. and many stores are running out of those home antigen tests of course, some of us still have those boxes left over from when we used to get them for free through usps or our insurance. and the fda just extended some expiration dates. we're going to pull that up. and you explain to us how this is working and how they're able to extend the dates for those kits. >> yeah. so when you first buy a test kit, maybe people bought them last year and they're in a closet and you basically go to the fda site. first of all, you check the expiration date, but don't throw it away yet. go to that site. you click on the test that you have. there's a link with a lot number. the lot number is next to the expiration date on your box and the lot number will tell you exactly see

if it's been extended for many cases, testing kits have been extended for as long as 22 months and the reason why is that when the companies apply for fda clearance, they're only able to apply for an expiration based on the data that they have in real time. so as they continue to test the test kits that many times and pretty much in all cases, they are longer than the date that stamped on the box. >> got it. so it's kind of like your canned food, right? you don't want to just throw it out. i mean, it may still actually be usable and accurate. is that right? yeah i would say the only time it probably isn't accurate is if it's been sitting in your car trunk and you live where there's been a heat wave and it's been there for a long time and most cases, um, inside the house, it's going to be fine. got it. now, assuming they still work, are these older tests capable of and are just as good

at detecting those new variants that have come out since? >> yes, they are still good. it's all omicron uh- you know, for a long time now and the testing uh- is still accurate for omicron flavors. >> got it. is it if it's old and no longer working, is it like in the window? it's going to show negative when it's actually positive or vice versa? or is it just not going to show anything? >> so the main thing to help you figure out if the test is working is the control. now, people don't really usually look at that control bar. yeah but it's the first thing that turns red and then your window is there. if that doesn't turn any color, i'd be suspicious about that test. got it. >> thank you so very much. the government is still making some tests available for free to people without health insurance or who have been exposed. i know it's a lot more limited, but let's show people that test locator website. it is through the cdc and you can enter your

address or zip code and then locations will pop up. but talk to us about whether it's still a good idea to get tested when you would want to get tested. yeah >> so the main things and the reasons for getting tested, the lowest hanging fruit is if you are older, say older and 65 or immune compromise, or if you live with somebody who is vulnerable of obviously if you live with somebody, you'd want to know so that you can protect them. and if you are yourself vulnerable for getting seriously ill or a test is really helpful because as you have, you know, five days where paxlovid can really have an impact in helping you stay away from the hospital. right. >> and of course, you know, if you've been exposed to somebody such as president biden, who was seen today wearing a mask because his wife, dr. jill biden, has tested positive. but president biden is still making his appearances. do you think this is all proper protocol, all

what he's doing? >> yes, he's he's doing the best protocol, which is i go to a dinner party. i heard that there are a few people who are testing positive. i you know, our test at the time i hear the news. if it's negative, i keep that mask on for five days or so and test again on day five of earlier if you have symptoms. that is sort of the gold standard way of testing. >> all right. great i also want to ask you about whether there's new evidence that that new variant 2.8 6th may be less contagious than feared. >> yeah. so there's data actually released today in preprint uh- now from three countries, the us, sweden and china showing two things. first of all, like you mentioned, kristin, it probably isn't as contagious as people fear it, even though it has more than 30 mutations compared to svb's like 1.5. and the second thing is

that it probably is not as fearful as we think it is because our antibodies to the vaccines that people have gotten already or exposure to natural infection would easily overcome these. this variant if it were to take off shop. >> all right. that is really good to hear the updated covid booster, of course, is supposed to come out, i think, as soon as, what, eight days from now. can you talk about who you think really should get it? and what if you just recently had covid? should you not get it? oh, yeah. >> so if you've recently had covid, you probably want to wait at least three months before getting another vaccine. and that's really to give you the best benefit of responding to a new signal because your body is just flooded with the antibodies based on the you know, what might have been circulating, but not to the new vaccine. the second thing is that, you know, so three months and then for

those people who haven't gotten a booster recently and you're older than 65 or immune compromised of any age, you should probably go ahead and run and get it for the other people . again, you know, i think timing of a flu shot is probably a good idea and you want to get it sometime in september or october. it's like goldilocks, not too soon, not too late. so you can really protect yourself against the winter surge, which is expected to be bigger than what we're seeing right now. >> are you talking about covid? right. you brought up the flu shot. okay. sorry you brought up the flu shot. and i'm glad because i wanted to ask you how do you time that, right? you're looking at the flu shot. you're looking at covid. and for some people, some categories, i think 60 and up and pregnant women, you're supposed to get the rsv vaccine, too, which is new. so how would you set up this ideal schedule? >> the ideal schedule is that like last year you want to get the you can get the flu and covid around the same time for

rsv, it's more limited. so if you're older than 60, you're pregnant in the third trimester, you you probably get it as part of routine care in the in the case of the pregnant person in the case of the person within 60, you want to have a conversation with your clinician about it. so the way i think about it is you're not getting three needles at the same time. you get covid and influenza at the same time. and then you have that discussion on and you can get rsv at some other time and covid and flu at the same time. >> absolutely fine. doesn't overwhelm you. doesn't make either less effective. >> 100. okay. in fact, in the future, we're expect going to have covid and influenza combined. so one needle, two vaccines. >> all right, dr. peterson hong, thank you so much. always a wealth of information. appreciate it. >> thanks so much, kristen. >> coming up next, pay equity in the workforce. how does california fare? new data shows

there's a long way to go. we'll dive into that. and don't forget it. go to abc7 news.com/vote now to weigh in on our digital driver's license sto. stay with us getting

♪ always in that state of mind ♪ ♪ living on a high vibration ♪ ♪ so hot gonna make it melt ♪ ♪ and i'm lovin' what i'm tastin' ♪ ♪ que bonito lugar lleno de tanto sabor ♪ ♪ so much flavor ♪ ♪ un future brillante se acerca ♪ ♪ ahhhhhhh ♪

♪ nos gusta mezclar ♪ ♪ como malteada ♪ ♪ aqui hay lugar ♪ ♪ yeah we livin' in the golden state ♪ ♪ dame mas, fres-co y real ♪ ♪ (wooh) dale gas ♪ ♪ vive en el estado dorado ♪ it is not getting any better in california for the land of equity and opportunity. in fact, in some areas the gaps are only getting wider. joining us live now to shed light on a new report by the california civil rights department, the director of the department, kevin kish. kevin, thanks for joining us. thank you. why was this report compiled? >> well, we've got a new law in california that for the past

three years has required large employers to report to us at the civil rights department data about their employees. what their race is, what their gender is, and what they get paid. and this is the second year that we've provided statewide aggregate data to about this information in our workforce. >> so what is the big headline, the summary, if you will? the big headline is that while california is ahead of the nation on the gender pay gap, for example, we still have a long way to go. >> we do see women and people of color are concentrated in the lowest paying jobs in our state in a way that is disproportionate to their population. >> all right. let's take a closer look at that. it seems, as you said, there is a clear pay gap by race. let's go ahead and show your findings and if you can explain what we're looking at here. this is actually not by race. this one is male, female, obviously, but talk about it seems like this one is about the different categories of jobs that they are

in. the men and women in. >> sure. so there are a couple of issues that this data can shed some light on. and one of them, of course, are pay disparities. so men and women or people of different races working in the same jobs and another type of category of information is what we call occupational segregation. so what you're going to see here are differences in the proportion of men and women in different occupations. and you see women very overrepresented among administrative support workers, for example, men very overrepresented among craft workers and operatives. right >> i see that men for executives or senior level officials at 60% compared to women, 40. that was certainly also explain the pay gap. of course, now let's look at the different racial categories, because it seems like there are certainly salary disparities there. what are we looking at here? what does this show us? >> sure. so when we look at race and this workforce and by the way, we'rere talking about

employees of the largest employers in california, employers with 100 or more. so there are millions of californians working in smaller workplaces that we don't see here. but we can see that, for example 38% of the entire recorded workforce is hispanic or latino, but a very small percentage of that, only about 9% of workers being paid. the most. so over $144,000 a year are hispanic or latino, whereas we see that more than 50% of white workers are in that highest paid category. >> all right. i assume some of this correlates with what we saw with men and women in the different job categories that the different racial groups are in right. so can you talk about, you know, how this is happening and how we can begin to change that trend? absolutely >> so we've been talking about pay disparities literally for decades, right? the federal government has collected data on this for about 60 years. we can't fix a problem that we aren't looking at and that we

aren't paying attention to. so one of the things that gives me hope is that i actually think we're very united around the idea that we don't want our kids going into workplaces where they're going to be paid differently based on their race or their gender. so having the data and having the obligation to collect it and look at it is a great moment for california employers to say, hey, do we have any disparate issues that we can't explain? let's address them. >> well, can i also ask you then you know, the national trend. i realize this is a california law that mandated these companies report the figures, but is there any way we can see if we're at least doing a little better here ? sure. >> yeah, there is some national data and what we can see on the national level on the gender front is that we are a little bit ahead of the nation as a whole. so california women are earning a little bit more vis a vis men than women across the country as a whole. we don't at this time have race data nationwide. we have that in california because of the

particular nature of the law that the california legislature passed. so we're ahead of the curve here, and it does give us an opportunity to make corrections where we see them can i also ask you to zoom in a little bit on the bay area itself. >> where are the biggest pay disparities here? and anything of note here are in this region ? >> sure. some of the data which everybody has access to, you can go on to our website at cal civil-rights dot gov. look at the data yourself. download the spreadsheets, look at the charts we know that there are big disparities in certain industries across the state, so there are big dispatch cities in the finance industry that are gender based. there are big disparities in entertainment industries. other industries have fewer disparity. so y also see industries where there are there is a significant overrepresentation of men or women versus what you might

expect from their percentage of the population. and again, this data reflects about half and half, which is what we would assume a little bit more men than women in this data set 52% versus 48. but then you see in particular industries big disparities in who's there and who's getting paid. what interesting. >> and that's despite all the transparency laws that we now have. right. a lot of companies have been kind of self auditing to try to level the playing field, but we still have a lot of work to do. kevin kish, thank you so much for that information. really appreciate it. thank you. coming up, putting your driver's license on your phone. a pilot program launching right here in california is making it possible. and we want to know what you think. go to abc7 news.com/vote to tell us is this something you'd use or not? we'll share the results and learn all about this

and keep it right there on your phone. our media partner at the standard explores all the ins and outs of the app and how it works in this new article on their website. today, we want to hear from you. would you use a digital driver's license or go to abc7 news.com/vote to tell us what you think. and you can track the results live at the bottom of your screen. some of you have started voting already. so far it's an overwhelming yes, but let's hear more about it before we decide. you can always change your mind. joining us live now to talk about this digital wallet app is the standards editor in chief, julie mckinnon. julie first time having you on this show. welcome. so glad to have you on . thank you. >> thank you. great to be here. >> i know. and what a topic, because everyone in the newsroom was very interested in this. what is the new driver's license pilot program that the dmv has rolled out? >> well, it's exactly what it sounds like. you can download an app either for the iphone or

android and then you can scan your physical card and take a selfie of yourself and the dmv will, if it can match your selfie to your driver's license , it can store sort of a digital copy of your driver's license in your phone. >> is california the first state to launch something like this? >> it is not. >> there are a number of other states doing it, including utah . and you can use it at various airports around the country. >> darn. i always thought we'd be the first with anything technology, but that's okay, julie. so you said airports. are they the only place that will accept this form of a license for now? >> so right now, really the best the only place that this digital license is really a true 1 to 1 analog for your good old card is in the precheck lines at certain airports. >> now, luckily for us, those airports include sfo, san jose and lax. if you're a frequent

traveler to those airports and you have precheck, i would think that this could be very convenient for you. in addition, it can be used at about two dozen other major airports around the country. but it's not so good right now for if you get pulled over by a police officer officer for speeding or if you just want to go buy a bottle of wine. >> right. i imagine that. same for a cigarets firearms, anything that requires proof of age like that, you can't just show the app and your digital license, right? you need the real thing. >> not yet. not yet. but they are testing sort of a super enhanced version of this app in sacramento. there's five mini marts in the sacramento area where if you get sort of a special extra upgrade to the app that validates your age, you can go to one of these mini marts and say, take home a case of beer, huh? >> okay. how fraud proof is this? >> i think that's a good question. and i certainly don't have all the answers about it.

but the way it seems to work is when you open the app, you click on a button and it generates a one time use. qr code that i imagine is only valid for a certain amount of time and is probably updated very, very frequently. so it's not like you could screen shot the app and just circulate that qr code to drop it to all your friends. yeah it would also presumably update on the day you turn 21 from being 20. so i think it would have to refresh kind of in real time to keep up with people's, you know, advancing age. >> i see. now, will the dmv track people or be able to track people who use the digital license? >> they say they won't. so take take that as you may, but they say that it actually gives you more control over how your personal data would be used. you know, sometimes you go to a bar and the bouncer might scan your for your id through like a card reader. and presumably in that

sense, that data is being stored on somebody else's machine. >> i mean, i realize it's a pilot right now and its uses are limited right now, but do you think the idea is to eventually have this replace the physical license altogether? >> i think like a lot of things that have been replaced, the same way, you know, credit cards have been replaced largely by things like apple pay or are being replaced. just we're going to be having less and less physical things and more more digital things. >> i think so. >> all right. so you had mentioned this, a pilot program, and it's limited to 1.5 million people. right the first who sign up. so can you tell people how to do it and whether there's still spots, if you will? >> i believe there are still spots, but i just signed up yesterday. go to your app store. download the app and you can just start registering from there. you do need a dmv account. so if you have ever

registered your car online or tried to update your driver's license online, you probably already have a california dmv account. if you don't, it's really easy to create one just with an email and password. >> yep, indeed. okay, so folks, thank you for voting on this. i see. after our conversation, julie opinions really haven't changed all that much. would you use a digital driver's license? it's still hovering at about 78, so that is an overwhelming four out of five people. so we'll see how that goes. all right. before we let you go, julie, i do want to ask you about about the stander launching a virtual q&a event coming up on thursday. say that you are hosting. tell us about it. yeah i'm really excited about this. >> this is a chance for us to interact with a lot of our readers from the comfort of their own homes or offices or phones. we're doing live zooms from the newsroom. we're going to try to do these on a weekly or bi weekly basis, and we're going to have a rotate cast of reporters and editors tackling a variety of topics. we're starting this week with what is the future of downtown. so i'll be joined by our business

reporter and arts and arts and entertainment reporter. and we're going to explore what's next for downtown san francisco. >> all right. we've had julie zagorz and kevin truong on before. always good additions to our show, so i'm sure that'll be a lively conversation. how can people take part? >> and just go to our website at substandard.com and you can register for free right there. >> all right. julie mckinnon, editor in chief of the standard. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> and a reminder once again, that series of live free q&a sessions launching this thursday. join a rotating cast of editors and reporters who will share their insights and answer your questions on subjects ranging from the real estate market to robo taxis behaving badly or people behaving badly in robo taxis. the series kicks off thursday at noon with a deep dive on the future of downtown san francisco. as julie mentioned, registration is free and again, that's at the standard's website . sf standard.com. we'll take a

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tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. the former leader of the proud boys sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. the judge just moments ago sentencing enrique tarrio to more than two decades behind bars. the toughest sentence yet for any individual convicted of seditious conspiracy and other felonies. the scene inside the courtroom. enrique tarrio and his taerl tea