>> tonight on kqed newsroom, our special guest, dr. monica gandhi shares her insight. and we talk about california lawmakers taking on big oil and gas and how they are having problems with employment agencies in sacramento. les halloween is around the corner. we take in autumn festivities on this week's edition of something beautiful. coming to you from kqed

headquarters in safrancisco. this friday, october 29th, 2021. welcome to the show i am priya david clemens and this is kqed newsroom. the left catch-up. our pick for some of the top stories in california this week. reservoirs across northern california have slightly higher water levels thanks to last week's drenching storm. a bomb cyclone and atmospheric river broke 100 year rain records in parts of northern california, including san francisco, where we had our wettest ever day in october. in order to escape our severe drought, we need a lot more rain. governor newsom received his booster shot this weekend and encouraged all eligible californians to get the boosters, too. the calirnia drug administration has authorized the emergency use of the

vaccine for children age 5 to 11. and they are ready to roll it out on school campuses next week. facebook now has a corporate name called meta-. the company had a role in online extremism, the profits grew compared this time last quarter. the teller tech companies talk snapchat and youtube and we útalk about online bullying and adult content. >> what are you doing to stop bulleting onsnapchat? ú>> this is a moving issue for me as a parent. bullying is something we are seeing happening to our kids.

this is not just on the online community. they face it at school and bring it home. we have zero tolerance on snapchat for bullying of any kind. a platform that reaches so many young people, we feel it a responsibility to get in front of this issue and stop it aired >> $9 billion is the new price tag for the bart extension according to the transit administration. that new $9 billion figure is twice as much as the original cost estimate aired top members of the newsom administration will travel scotland for climate conference next week. they are warning the world leaders are not doing enough to prevent "catastrophic climate change" the goal is to highlight groundbreaking policies to combat the intensifying climate crisis and stop there reliance

on oil. >> companies over a half electric vehicles are purchased in this state and owned in the state. >> that's this week's friday five. i'll be joined later by our experts. but first, in california, roughly one out of eight people have tested positive for the coronavirus more than once. for a total of 4,600,000 cases. 70,000 have died from illnesses linked to the virus. in recent months the virus appears to be abating as case rates and hospitalization drop too low numbers. however, those numbers are trending higher. public health officials are sounding the alarm that we could be up for coronavirus this winter unless we stop at. i'm joined by dr. monica gandhi

from ucsf. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> are you concerned about a winter surge of covid cases? >> i think we say never say never. there are 80% those of us over 12 vaccinated in the state of california. to denmark, norway, finland, sweden, opened up at a rate of 80% full vaccination over 12. they have seen increased cases as they opened up. they stopped mask mandates. denmark opened september 10th and they have not seen an increase in deaths or hospitalizations. this is what vaccine immunity does is it prevents you from gettinsevere disease. we could see more cases but not hospitalizations. >> what you think about this weekend with halloween coming

up. fauci has said americans can go out and enjoy halloween, as usual, especially if you are vaccinated . young children are not vaccinated and mingling with lots of people and putting their hands in bowls of candy. since we started vaccinating over holiday weekends. we didn't see it over labor day. this is the next holiday. it's outside. and literally 2020, the university of canterbury did a scope review of how low transmission is. tell everyone to go outside before they get the vaccine. they should out be trick-or- treating. and inside, we have high enough vaccination rate that you can keep your child masked inside, and until they can get

vaccinated. >> let's talk about kids getting vaccinated. it looks like that could happen soon. california is preparing to vaccinate many. i want to talk about what dr. gauley, secretary health and human service said about vaccinating the 5 to 11-year- old age reading range. >> 9% of the states population is 5 to 11 years old. that means 9% more to that blanket of protection that has helped lead the nation in terms of vaccine >> do you have any advice for parents as they prepare to vaccinate their young one? >> i will vaccinate my 11-year- old as soon as we can. i will say three things why vaccinate children. yes the risk of severe disease is lower in children. it would be unwise to say that epd me logically. however, the

delta surgeon areas of low vaccination, there were increased cases of children and increased hospitalization of children because we weren't protecting our children. any severe outcome you can prevent, even a low cause of death in children. if i had a vaccine to prevent a child never having a car accident and it safe i would say give e vaccine. that's the number one reason. the number two, reduce transmission to others. we living communities with older grandparents and adults. dr. barry is right, it protects others. third, we have the most restrictions and our state of any two children. not a surprise to anyone. 50 out of 50 in school. it's imperative for children to get back to normal life. i mean not masking and not living in schools th fear and

quarantine. it's imperative to go back to normal life. mental health emergency declared by the natural pediatcs. i hope we will have clear metricsafter they are vaccinated and they can go an do everything they are supposed to be doing as children. >> there is known to be a slight risk to children when it comes to potential damage to theiheart from the initial studies. how do you weigh that risk? >> that is a true risk. it has not been seeing in the 5 to 11. where did we see it picks 12 to 17-year-olds among the meeting. they presented the data in that age group. young males after the second dose were more likely to get this rare and treatable side effect. they were likely to get it aired because of that come i looked at three pieces of data.

space the time between our doses to the young people for eight weeks. it makes their t cells and antibodies beer. canada showed us giving three weeks between doses is not as effective as 6 to 8 weeks. third, more episodes in israel, four times the rate when they ga three-week spacing between doses than canada when they gave eight wes spacing between doses. i talked to my pediatricians we should space out doses for children, eight weeks. tat's what i will do for my 11- year-old and i did for my 13- year-old. >> that's good advice. this week we saw contract half caustic county shut down as a pro told protest for the vaccine

mandate. what you think about the action? do you think restaurant should check for vaccinations before they let patrons in? >> i supported this on august 20th. i public we supported vaccine past states passports and mandates. at that point we were getting through the delta surgeon and vaccinations were important. it is extremely important to decide when to lift restrictions, including mandates and passports and mask and contact tracing and everything else, based on your level of immunity in what you are seeing. denmark had mandates and they stopped it all on september 10th. they saw increased cases and no bunching in e hospitalization and death all restrictions have to be lifted. i don't know if we are there yet. i supported it but there was an article in the san francisco

chronicle thought this was the time to do it given the low rate. >> you been branded as a doctor as an out lower outlier. you haven't always agreed to the approach to the virus. the san francisco chronicle wrote that you are one of the most controversial infectious disease expert aired does that labeling feel accurate to you x >> it doesn't. i have to say i came to the city in 1996 because i was úfascinated by infectious diseae and specifically hiv. i wanted to come to the epicenter to do my training. harm reduction means you want to reduce cases. just like everyone wanted to reduce cases in san francisco. you do it with the context of people in mind. workers need filtered basques to go inside. people are still working.

vulnerable patients canst not come to the clinic because they don't have phones. and people are lonely. figure out how to see each other safely. i don't think i'm an outlier. maybe only in san francisco and someone that's worked with homeless and i'm the medical director of the clinic. and thought about things for public schools and not private schools, they were open a whole time so i don't know why am called an outlier. i think i'm very careful and all about safety and harm reduction in my advice for the pandemic. >> you been active in social media. a lot of the medical community has shared information. you've received fiercely negative comments and death threats. you said you'd stop posting to twitter on january 1st, 2022. is it too much to handle or did

you pick the date the need for the information would be diminished. the pandemic would be over. >> i don't think it'll be over but the emergency phase will be over. we are not accounting for in úvaccination rates is what is not wanting to happen but there's a lot of transmission. 10 million cases in the u.s.. natural immunity does cause protection it's a true from on him. there's probably 30 million because we underestimated infections. we will be in a better place. the emergency can only and if you have deaths around at the end of the day. i was tapped by the right. i believe in maxine's. double macks canyon got me the death threat.

i met interested in mitigation and the public health trust. when do you release the masks and measures and increase public health trust. and decide when the restrictions came up. that's the other side. so i think i will concentrate on my work. >> dr. monica gandhi, thanks for coming on the show and sharing your insights. >> thank you. >> san francisco could become the first city of the nation to require sick leave for domestic rkers such as nannies and housecleaners. the proposed legislation would create a system to collect for multiple part-time employers. the development department was in the hot seat last week.

sacramental lawmakers grill them helpearly they handle the flood of unemployment claims triggered by the pandemic. joining us is seema mehta. she joins us by skype . and we have 10th of guy marzorati. tell us about the proposal for healthcare for domestic workers. how would it work. >> helping thousands of workers in san francisco work paid leave. they are working in multiple households. they are not in many of them. to rack up the benefits. they are across different employers how they pay in. basically the idea of something úas simple not having to come t work sick.

>> turning now to the state's employment development department. ded. it's been troubled since the pandemic began. they have backlogged hundred and 40,000 cases and paid out billions of dollars to scammers. on monday there was a hearing in which the state questioned ed about the problem. we will listen to a moment of the hearing. >> this money could have purchased 16,789 california homes at that the media price point paid for california homes. it could have also paid for four years of schooling at auc university aired that total of students would amount to 2065. it's also $4 billion more than the entire operating budget of

the cu system. >> a staggering amount of money paid out. overcome these issues? o >> there has not been a lot of progress. and this problem was exasperated at the pandemic. there is been issues with the department for years and years. starting to work with this across thstate. some of the fixes that are in terms of increasing the number working on the issues and work on the pride, take phone calls. on the phe broader problem of . technology could take a couple of years. is fully ironic on the state. there's a lot of built up frustration that it's taken so long. >> i do want to skip ahead to another hearing, this one in washington, d.c. congress member khanna represents the sacramento valley.

oil and gas how they affect climate change. >> i don't think you purposely want to be out there spreading misinformation. you are funding the groups and they are having an impact. they are spending millions of dollars in congress that kills electric vehicles. billions of dollars against methane gas. you can do something here. you can tell them to knock it off for the sake of the planet. you could end of the lobbying. opportunity and look at api and say stop it? any of you? >> congress member khanna is referring to the petroleum institute, a lobbying group aired where do we go from here? >> he talked to kqed this

weekend. he didn't feel like the executive quotes came clean. he asked for the pledge to make sure they distanced themselves from the group that was spreading misinformation on a link and mission for climate change. democrats furthering the investigation. they want to try to find the links between oil companies and third-party groups. it's a race against time. these are the kind of issues democrats can pursue as long as they have control of the house and have it senate investigation. they have to have political power. >> interesting to watch this coming forward. not a one-off. we ll have more hearings ahead. seema let's turn to redistricting. california is looking at redistrict . they are being made by boards. what does that mean for the process? is it fair? >> this is the second time the state has done independent

first time was 10 years ago after voters approved it in 2008 aired independent panel. sums democrats, some republicans and some no party preference. i've been hearing from varying interest groups. they were super delayed giving them the daughter they needed. now they are in a real time crunch with drafts due mid- november and final by christmas time. people are scrutinizing and having the visualization they call them. to different communities but minority communities, geographic communities and different communities of interest are arguing why they should be apart from this other community. a lot of jockeying going on right now. this draft in november is what we will see, who are the winners and who are the losers. pension chill lawsuit. a lot will happen in the next couple months. >> crunch tim

guy you spend time on this yesterday with east bay mayors. tell us about their thoughts and concerns. >> danville, pleasanton, lynn livermore, san ramon. they feel like they are a unique community that needs one district. they feel like that makes it easy for them to communicate to one member of the state legislature. that could change in the process. we are seeing the redistrict thing commission that splits up the tri-valley. it has implications for the balance of power for the house of representative aired in the central valley the city of tracy is currently the most liberal part of this certain district that's been hotly contested. the latest map pulls tracy into the bay area with cities like livermore. if you take out the little

piece of district, it makes it a lot harder for democrats to win that seat in 2022. >> the basic income pilot programs have been popping up around te state. the los angeles is kicking off the biggest such program yet. tell us about it. >> they have applications today for the program. many communities across the country have different ones. of in l.a. they are looking at 3200 families give $1000 a month to. first day of the application was today and a decision will be made in january. one of the things that's unique about the program is there are no restrictions on how the money can be used. there are reese editions on qualification. have to book be below the poverty level and have to be in úthe city. there are restrictions on who qualifies. if you receive the money, unlike other grants, no restrictions on how you spend

it. this program just incentivizes work. it will help people who are working bring it up to the next level. they are not paying the bills are paid the rent or their childcare. going to be a large program. let's take a look and talk about recall election. it sounds like ancient history. final tally for governor newsom's recall election. it increases margin were majority voted for him in 2018. there's been chatter of reforming the recall process and now actively being discussed aired guy, what happened in sacramento today? >> the process looked at changing the recall laws in california. they are going into it with an open mind. they want to end up with a place where they get bipartisan support. but i was surprised at some of

the testimony that we heard in the leslature on thursday from experts who have been studying the recall process. they said any changes made to make it harder to get recalls on the ballot would come with real drawbacks. they make the argument that if you raise the signature threshold which is been the most popular idea for reforming recall. we have a low threshold compared to other states. to 12% of voters in the last election. if you raise that there are consequences, leaving it to well-funded businesses would be the only ones able to put on a statewide signature and get a recall for. those are the considerations that lawmakers have to deal with it i expected to be a big issue for the legislature this year. guy marzorati and seema mehta, thank you. this week's look at something beautiful. the festive fall activities in petaluma at the punctum patch.

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that wraps up our show for tonight. thank you for joining us. if you want to get a look behind the scenes. hang out with us. email us at kqed.org. you can reach me on twitter. we will see you back here friday night. have a great halloween.

♪ yamiche: president biden's big gamble. pres. biden: no one got everything they wanted, including me, but that is what compromise is. that is what i ran on. yamiche: president biden unveils a $1.75 trillion framework for infrastructure and social policy. now, he is helping you to learn the support of americans and convince democrats on capitol hill that it is time to make a deal and pass legislation. >> this is phenomenal progress we have made in just three weeks because the progressive caucus was bold, but we understood that in a democracy, it can get messy sometimes. yamiche: while progressives back the framework, they are still cautious about the way forward. plus, president biden heads to

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