Than 250,000 deaths from covid 19. As a surge of new cases and hospitalizations strain Healthcare Systems across much of the nation. Cdon thursday, the advised americans not to travel for the thanksgiving holiday. Citing therapid spread of new cases. Llre than 1 min in the past week. Last year, 55 million americans traveled for thanksgiving. Aaa expect eight 10 the number of travelers, which still mean tens of millions of people wl leave home, many carrying the coronavirus with them. Joining us from San Francisco is chthe r of the department of medicine at uc San Francisco. Dr. Walker, r thank you joining us. Out Holiday Travel next week . Incredibly high. This is a terrible time, unfortunately during the pandemic, the virus is skyrocketing everywhere. Worse in the midwes than other parts of the country. To california in some parts. A lot of virus everywhere. U had to design an event to create more spread u would have different people come together and take their masks off and have a meal and have a few drinks and sit close together. Of the virus would wa a holiday, thats what it would design. Is sad and we needto do it differently or we will see more deaths than we should. How are you planning to celebrate sang thanksgiving this ye . Fourmypeople. Wife, my daughter and two children. They have all been in San Francisco in a pod. Even tre we will ep more than six feet away around a large table. We will order in from a its not exactly we will do every year but we want to stay healthy and stay alive. How do you recommd talking to friends and family who dont think its t sky to together or is safe if you get tested prior to being together. Unfortunately,the test is not completely reassurance, if you knew everyone around the table had a negative test at day, you could be reasonably comfortable its fairly safe to do. Of ththlogistics of are pretty hard. So, what you are probably going to see is someone got the test four days ago and it took three days to come back which they were t infected four days ago but doesnt mean today. I approach these things in this way. I say to myself, if things went wrong and somebody got very sick and d,god for somebody died, would i feel good about having done it . Obviously, we dont feel bad about it but was that a reasonable decision knowing what i knew meat that i visited my 90yearold father in florida a couple of months ago. Hes dying and i wanted to see him alive before he died. I did it with my eyes completely open. Thats the question i as i got sick or he or my mother got sick because of it, what i feel like thatwas a foolish decision. I felt like it was okay. Thats the test for thanksgiving. Well talk about vaccine. Itchanges because eres a light at the end of the tunnel. We are not talking about doing it for other, anthis holiday christmas. Probably not next thanksgiving. Lets talk about the regulations in place. We see the statistics about the number of deaths. There is still many who point to the survivability rate of 99 . They think the regulations are overblow is their accuracy in that line of thought x the accuracy is that the th chance you will die if you get covid are relatively lo they are about five times higher than the flu, but its not like you have metastatic cancer or ebola i or hiv in the early days d fore we treatment. Thats accurate. The chances are quite a bit varied depending on who you youre 25 years old chances are extremely low. If you are 75 years old or 50 and veyou Heart Disease and are obese, chances are higher. We multiply 10 people around the table, all of those people around the table theres an decent one will get very sick. Six months ago we dichotomized see outcome either you die or its fine, have an unpleasant week. A fair number of people will continue to have pretty bad symptoms for weeks and months. If you do cardiac tests on people a couple of months out even when they feel fine, there are admin maladies in a number of people. We have no idea what that mes it may rn out that they have longstanding Heart Disease it causes problems later. Its not as simple as dying or thing, there are lot of other outcomes that we would care about. I think the key point is, even if rathe death is about. 6 percent, all comers, thats a decently high g. Ance of dy its not like walkine across street. Theres a lot of risks that we take in life, we get in the car and drive somewhere, get the plane and drive somewhere. And none of those risks, and less you are hang gliding are an. 6here remotely a percent chance which is one in 150 that you would dieat. A big deal. What is your response for overnight counties in purple tier. Intended for people to gather together in e night and to bars. Why is that segment of the population targeted . Hes trying to dim the switch a little more without going all the way. Iftuthings dont around, the case rates are going pretty steeply high right now. If things dont turn around quickly, we wi. See mo its a reasonable idea to say were not going to shut down all gatherings, we wont go back h mad stay home. We are going to say if you are going over to a friends house to drink, thats a risky thing to do. As we try thto move dimmer switch to the right place, lets do this and see how thin y go. Mentioned in a tweet yesterday it feels like were vie. Ng at a lit screen on one side the horrors of the pandemic on the other is the bright hope of a vaccine. Its hard for the human brain to keep those thoughts and not ve them clash against each other. The one screen is e a su unlike any we have seen before. Worse than most of us predicted. We all thought it would benta surge, did not think it would be this big and broadly distributed and this cataclysmic in the midwes is not t cataclysmic in the bay area. But the midwest is a horror show right now and getting worse. Yes we havebetter treatments, chances of dying are lower than it wouldve been six months ago. A lot of peoplewill die. 250,000 deaths. Thats hard to get your arms around thats the entire population of renal or buffalo. Orndo, discuss il, arizona. On the other hand you have this other screen that showing this movie this beyond anything we could have dreameof, 95 effective vaccines that it appeared to rebe ely safe and will be injected into peopoulders about one month from now. That soon . Yes, not everybody. Of the supply of such maybe 15 to 20 Million People can get vaccinated by ofthe beginning the year. That will be prioritized to older people at high risk and healthcare workers. If youre not one of those categories, you will not get it on january 1st. Is highly likely the drugs wiro be ad by the fda in the next two eks. They will start being used probably by the third week of december. The vaccine news has enbeen exce at the same time weve been having not a National Response or strategy. Has the vaccines been helped or hindered by the Trump Administration and d. Eration warp sp help. Ive been highly critical i think theyv gotten everything wrong. The messaging on masks craziness about hydroxychloroquine and bleach and everything else. The whole thing has been mucked up except for vaccine. Vaccines, they got it right. They basically id we ha these amazing cynical companies. If we give th money ansay you have no financial risk, go out and put the best science and best technology on this do whatever youcan and get vaccine out there in record time. We will fund the Clinical Trials which is expensive and of the early stages of manufacturing and distribution, the minute one ready to go and be ship, thats a bold thing to do. It 2 cost about billionbut it will probably shorten the pandemic by one year and get year before it might have been. Brilliant investment. I think we should have nothing but praise for that part of the federal response. The last very few seconds we have here, concerns about the distribution adopti of the vaccines . It depends on how the federal government does it. There is reason for concern, but i thk we willprobably get it right. Every state is gearing up to do it. I think the distribution will be okay. It wont be distribute Million People on day one we dont have that. Ta it will time to ramp up. In terms of whether people will take it there have been surveys that y half thpeople wont take it. But those were a theoretical question. If you say there is a vaccine thats truly proven and the results are clea 95 effective, feperfectly you may have flu symptoms for a day or two and if you take it, you will not have to worry about going into a restaurant or ck going to work, your life can come back to normal, im guessing the 80 to 90 percent of people will take it. There will be some people th wont but we dont need to get to 100 . We need to get to 70 or 80 . If im first in line as a healthcare worker, i will rs the fit one to take it. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Monday, california governor, gavin newsom, announced this date is pulling the emergency brake as coronavirus cases havecrrapidly se. 84 of californias population is under the most restrictive tier, color purple indicating ad whites bre transmission. The Health Officers say the number of covid is reaching alarming levels. County, san jose in santa clara mayor, thank you for joining us. Good to be with you. There ha been 280 new cases this week. Can you describe the situation on the ground for us . We are averaging about 0 now. Thats very worrisome for Public Health officials and all of us. It also means hospitalizations art taking upward and now almost twice as high as we were one month ago. Thats a ave concern to everyone. We want to make sure we have adequate capacity in hospitals and icus. Many restrictive measures miare forward because we need them like so many counties throughout the state. Lets talk about that. The Healthcare Providers in san jose, do they have thprpersonal ective equipment, hospital facilities, ventilators that they need to respond to coming surge of new cases . What im hearing from our county officials, they are preparing as ll is a camp. They have demonstrated they are able to be prepared in the last couple of waves. We dont know where the peak ends. We havent en it styet in the terms of a number of cases. And 2 to 3 weeks later w see hospitalizations come through. We emphasized anyone, yoge flu shot in t addition to covid tested. We want to make sure no one is filling the hospital beds with flu cases. That will restrict our ability to deal with whatever we need to come ouway with covid. As the mayor you are concerned with the health of the residence and economic realities. They neare intert these days. What do businesses and residents in nesan jose to pull through the difficult times . Do you, as the mayor, have s e resour provide what they need . Bluntly, we need more money. Thats an easy thing for politicians to y. In thiscase, we all know that congress has been deadlocked on providing any significant aid for seral months now. We would love to see speaker pelosis bill passed. But weve got to get money in the hands of small businesses. Many employee unemploymentra ine has to get extended, people are desperate now. The new unemployment numbers in san jose dont seemto be that bad. Of the county is 6 unemployment. 5. 9 they just came out. Se it would to suggest that things are getting better. We know it hides the cruel reality. Parts of my community that have suffered the most from covid, the most hospitalizations, most deaths are communities like san jose, high latin population. They are also suffering from unemployment rates that exceed 20 . We know the Tech Industry is more or less doing fine. Its the rest of the economy. Of theservice industry where so many of our modest income, ployed, we need a lot of help to help them survive. Lets turn to the new overnight curfew the state has put in place. Have you directed your Police Department to enforce this new i regu . The Police Department will enforce it to be sure businesses are closed after 10 00 if they are nonessential, want to make sure they are shutting down the restaurants or places where folks may gather soally. You will not see officers pulling people over if they are driving, for example. The governor habeen clear, its not a curfew, per se, its a stayathome mandate. We are innot interested getting officers engaged in stopping folks that are on their way home kfrom w. We will be careful about this ngenforcement and focuon places where people might gather. Governnewsom has apologized for gathering with othersat a dinner party and he acknowledged he lost moral authority in the topic of social distancing. Whk do you thof his actions despite official warnings not to travel out of state . I learned a while ag living ina glass house myself, should not throw rocks. Kudos for apologizing and being rthright about it. He recognizes his error, we have all been there. Mayor, how will you, yourself be thspending ksgiving this year . Will it be different than it was from a typical year x my family is mix of irish and sicilian and mexican. We are big catholic family. Its not going to be that way. We will miss a lot of folks. We had a newborn baby in the family, my nephew. Definitely want to see. Ks obviously, its a painful time for a lot of families right now. We wi have to hunker down, do the best we can to get through this. There will be a lot of lebration when we n get on the other side of this. When do you see the other side coming . What are you saying for how long they should be holding on . We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We dont know how long the tuanel is. The uncements about the vaccin was very good. Thats months down the road before it will be widely available. We expect there will be other vaccine. It may be the case and a Public Health expert, the treatments that we are seeing substantially reduce the mortality and may able us to open up sooner. Technology right now. Ce and in the meantime, do our best and keep our masks on. Mayor, thank you. Thank you, pleasurebeing here. We turn out to Fresno County in Central California which has also rolled back to the purple tier. Of the sheriff and police said they will noenforce the new overnight curfew. Joining us by skype is e mayor. U to thank for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Fresno county sheriff along with lawenforcement in surrounding counties say they will not enforce e curfew that the governor has announced will go into effect on saturday. Said they will be open and services in defiance of the orders. Are you concerned this resistance will ad to more cases . I am concerned about it but i understand it. My primary responsibility is to keep people safe in the city were looking at a curfew that is extremely difficult to enforce. Compliance. Oluntary our police endepartment has stretched like many Law Enforcement agencies across the state. We are focused on a lot of serious s,ime with ga murders, robberies, ive got to prioritize it. Certain things ke restaurant i think its onerous. You are measuring the damage, people are overly fatigued by the covid virus and measure th against everyone is learning more. Hopefully were getting towards the end. In adtion to not enforcing the curfew, fresno has said it plans to find businesses that stay open during the day in a es manner that not comply in the purple tier regulations, they have more people in their establishment then allowed. T he code enforcem run by city council. I basically have the approach to try to educate people and not be punitive. I cantteguarthat with certain councilmembers. Of the vast majority of businesses in this area are good people, doing their job, struggling to survive and they are operating under the guidelines of social distancing, having plexiglass, prer air filtration thomas so on. There was a stanford study about mobility. Basically the lower level 25 capacity reducing infections by 80 . In other words, you are basically at the same20 as zero capacity. Why not let these guys have some way to make some money. They are ontheir last legs bridge without help from washington, icy industries being decimated. Consequences. Severe cay their rent or house payment. Balance all the systems. Not to diminish any prospective systems at all. It sounds like you are saying, you dont agree with the state regulations and so different ng to in a construct of way. Ad im nocating that people openly rebel, but we have to depend on voluntary coleliance. Peave to trust their weve befortunate in fresno leaders. For the past half year. From a very divisive issues e that all had to go through in an election and weve kept together as a body and we give the message to the people of fresno that we are interest, not overzeal r your one side or the other. It plays out, nomatter what you do as an executive, this is a year from. Once in 100 years pandemic. We have wildfires raging, everybody has had to go through all these layers. Et we once a week on resume with other mayors. San francisco, los angeles, San Francisco or fresno we all have the same problems. Lets ta about the numbers in fresno. According to Public Health department there more than 12,500 active cases in the county. At least 463 deat from covid19. Tell us about your local capacity. Numbers are growing there as they have been across the state, across the nation and they are likely to continue to grow over the coming weeks, are you worried about being overrun . What i have done is we look at this every week. I think weve done an excellent job of allocating 92 million for contact tracers and d sting people ppts and ppes and so on. I think weve done a pretty good job in the eroverall ion of fresno. We are about 3 to 400 short on our daily testing. We are opening new clinics. Ex we are nding our ability to get turnaround in 24 to 48 hour results. This is what we can to help people be safe. Ta. Nursing homes, coming the from neighborhood parties, bars o restaurants. I dont want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think so far, at least at the 25 capacity on restaurants and retailers, we are not gaining that much byreducing the pandemic. Governor newsom is apologizing for recently attending a group dinner anadin tion california state law makers traveled to maui for w a conference including a state senator from fresno. As an elected opinion yourself, why should we trust our lawmakers when they dont follow their own directives to the wpublic. Have to lead bye. Exam and nobody is perfect. I made a mistake recently, i attended a small dinner. And never let yo guard down. Set the example. Same applies to Governor Newsom and state legislature. You recently had dinner with your successor, mayor elect, jerry dyan. He has unced that he has quarantine. And you have since are people ive known for 20 years. These are not strangers i met at a rally. Even with family. My family this year, we have a veg family. Typically 15 to 20 people or more. We will break that up into just immediate family only. Much smaller, much more cautions taken. Dont let your guard down. My advice everybody out there, i realize this is an imorrtant timepeople to get together. People are struggling economically. I think with the Major Drug Companies coming out with vaccinations in 30 to 60 days we can start to reverse this. But have to keep infections low, maintain this. We have a Convention Center that is an overflow that we have not used yet. We appreciate your time. Stay safe thank you. Now, for our look at something beautiful. The next time you are a out for walk in San Francisco, explore one of the cities mosaic staircases, such as these tile steps on t th avenue, bu with community support. [ music playing ] y goodbye and good luck for our showerprodwho is moving to oregon with his family to embark on a new adventure. Thanks for everything you have done, happy trails. You can find more of our News Coverage on kqed. Org. We will be off next week for thanksgiving, we will e you back here in two weeks. However you celebrate, all of us at kqed newsroom wish you a safe and enjoyable holiday. Good night. Robert american democracy under pressure. Its my job to defend thet. Presid robert president tru and his allies try to delegitimize president elect bidencts y. Most republicans stay quiet. But democrats are alarmed. Republicans get over it. Stop spending all your time spading lies about the election. Robert meanwhile, the pandemic remains relentless. Bi ns transition is stalled. And so is congress. More people may die w ife robert next. Te. Announcer this is washington week. In fund is provided by before we talk about your investments, whats new . Well, audreys expecting. Twins. Well, audreys expecting. Twins