Alok patel to break down the key points and latest on covid trends, research trending, vaccine trials and much more. Post your questions now for dr. Patel on facebook. Well try to get them answered. Dr. Patel, good to see you again. Good to see you and thank you for including a doctor in your briefing. Absolutely. Always. Youre most important, lets put it that way. I know you watch with interest as i did to the president s briefing. It was the first in a while from the white house on covid19. Overall, wouldnt you say hes struck a more serious tone about the pandemic and where we are in the u. S. . Absolutely. You can tell off the bat that it had a little bit less of that kind of blatantly optimistic tone hes had and started by saying this is going to be worse before it gets better and seemed to really be sticking to a script or sticking to kind of predefined notes as opposed to winging and that somber tone unfortunately is needed right now but more focused on things he wasnt touching on instead of just thinking about the tone. We will break down what he touched on, and what he didnt here. I will say, there still seemed to be some inconsistent messaging in that even though he did say today things will get worse before they get better, just this morning, he tweeted that he said compared to most other countries, were doing very well. Are we doing very well . Id love it if he could run us through the numbers for a sense whether were doing well or not so well. Well, theres a satirical meme thats going around. People say, we are doing well, doing well means not controlling the pandemic, having more deaths than a lot of countries and our Positivity Rate continuously going high. So we are not doing well in terms of actually controlling what we need to be doing. But that seems to be a talking point that is returned back to the American People when people ask about what steps were taking now to curb the spread, and you know, i also have to say in terms of inconsistencies, simple messages can actually spark a wildfire. Just earlier this morning, the White House Press secretary mentioned that President Trump was getting tested multiple times a day and i immediately got messages from people saying, oh my gosh, should i be getting multiple tests a day and President Trump from the top said no. Thats never happened, i get test once every two or three days. So this inconsistency in messaging and kind of the repeat of america is doing so great, doing so better leaves people, again, in the dark and not knowing whats right and whats wrong. I want to move to testing in a moment but first, can you give us the latest numbers . I mean, i know were nearing 4 million cases in the u. S. But give us what you got in terms of deaths and take a closer look at california in terms of are hospitalizations and cases . Were still losing hundreds of people every day unfortunately from coronavirus. People are still dying. Theres hot spots popping up all over the country. Some places like arizona, my home state, have kind of said theyre hitting a stable level. So not drastically increasing but still there. Hospital capacity still hit. Florida just reporting now that they have this massive influx of patients in the icu. Theres border towns in texas that are being portrayed on the news saying theyre running out of ventilators. Theres issues all across the country, hot spots with high test Positivity Rate. I want to reiterate, when you test a large amount of people, again, nationally, were testing a lot, thats where new cases are coming from, we have to understand that the Positivity Rate is still high. People are still spreading the virus. Thats an appeal to Pay Attention to. Now, california, we are hitting now about 400,000 cases, which is crazy. Thats starting to hit new york numbers from spring, and so we have a lot of work to do as well wh when it comes to Controlling Community spread. Its shocking because we took such early action to close things down to stem the tide and to think that were nearing new york and could become tops, that is not the position we want to be in. But i want to ask you about those new positivity numbers. A lot of the new infections are younger people between 20 and 40. What about the argument, if theyre whos getting infect bud n not requiring hospitalization or dying, we are quote unquote, doing better, does that fly . Not necessarily. So theres a huge shade of gray in this statement saying young people are doing better so theyre going to be okay. Now, last week, and maybe repeated this quote a hundred times. When the president said 99 of cases are harmless, that is kind of misconstruing the mortality rate. The amount of people dying from the virus. Lets say the mortality rate is low, and just for arguments sake, lets say its 1 . That does not mean that every single other case like young people are, because theyre not dying, theyre going to be totally fine. Theres a lot of reports of young people getting hospitalized, getting sick with longterm symptoms but theyre still living. Theres also cases of people with mild symptoms but persisting for weeks at a time and still having huge kind of detriment to their life, and then young people also have to remember if they have mild symptoms, it doesnt mean the person they pass it to will have mild symptoms so young people are crucial in taking control of their role right now and realizing that they not only could get really sick but keep the spread going. Dr. Patel, theres a lot of questions coming in with how safe are salons right now. Whether to use Hand Sanitizer and n95 masks. I promise you folks, ill get to those questions during break and in our next segment. Ive got a few more things i want to run through with dr. Patel from the president s press conference though. He did say were doing massive numbers of testing, more than anybody else. More than 50 million tests. I think that is true, but i have to ask you, anecdotally, all im hearing from people in the bay area its harder to get a test. I know that. I have been going to a site in San Francisco and up until two weeks ago, i could get a test last minute same day, no problem. Now i cannot find one for the next three months or so. I have a friend whos in San Mateo County who got tested but had to wait ten days for the results. So it seems like whether its getting the test or the process, theres a backlog. What is happening . Youre absolutely right and we had this conversation briefly in april. There needs to be a focus on the supplies and who is running the tests. Certain companies, are there reports of missing supplies, is there a reason theres a bottleneck in the testing procedure . Theres a huge issue, if you have to wait 10 to 14 days for a test, you dont actually know if youre supposed to be sheltering in place at home and getting other people infected. If you go back to work, it almost completely breaks down the entire concept of test, isolate and trace. You cant Contact Trace if you dont know if people are positive or not. Its almost useless to wait 14 days. Are people actually expected to sit at home and assume theyre positive . In a perfect world, sure. But not in a world where people need to take care of children, go to work, et cetera. So i do hope theres a little bit more of a focus from National Leadership on where these delays are exist and if there needs to be increased funding to the state to fix the glitch. You heard talk of the defense production act which the president could invoke to get all the factories to ramp up to produce whether its the swabs or the needles or when we do have a vaccine, et cetera. Do you see a lot of power behind that from the medical community to push the president to go in that direction, is that going to happen . I feel a little jaded right now because that push did take place in march or april and it took a while for the testing to ramp up. There would need to be another massive outcry for this to happen and i do think, unfortunately, as more political pressure mounts, that could actually take place because sadly, this entire pandemic has become politicized but we heard earlier today, the white houses, one of the Communication Officers for the Trump Campaign really defend the testing response and talk about how the tests were coming out at the right time and the right place. Unfortunately, that wasnt true, and so i really do hope we have a little bit of a change in tune right now, especially seeing that the weather did not control the virus. We dont have outpatient treatments for the virus. People are still spreading it. The mixed messaging regarding masks. Everything contributed to the fact were not winning right now. All right. Were going to do some questions during break on our live streams. When we come back, well well as to how a have reverse mortgage works. People think that the bank takes your home, but that is not true. Thats absolutely 100 wrong. The home is ours. We can sell it if we want to at any time. I like the flexibility of not having a payment, but i can make the payment if i want to. Youre responsible for keeping up your property taxes and youre responsible for paying your insurance on the property. For us, it was a security blanket. The value of our house, was to fund our longterm health care. For years, reverse Mortgage Funding has been helping customers like these use the equity from their homes to finance their lives. They know the importance of having financial security. Make an appointment so they can tell you how it works. Its a good thing. Access your equity. Stay in your home. Have peace of mind. We are back with abc7 news special correspondent dr. Alok patel. We were on live streams answering your question. We have a few more questions before we get on to the topic of vaccines. Is it safer to wash your hands or use Hand Sanitizers . Preferably wed say wash your hands because Hand Sanitizer will work totally fine. Im not aware of any study that compared them side by side for preventing coronavirus. Just make sure you follow the usual tips, wash your hands for 20 seconds. Wash the palms, outside, thumbs, all of it or using Hand Sanitizer thats approved to actually kill the virus. Ill take this sick second to say there are some Hand Sanitizers that are advertised at being able to kill coronavirus and dont actually do that. So look at the back, look at the ingredients, compared to the epa web site if you need to. All right. How safe are outdoor salons . The governor approved nail salons to perform some of the services outdoors. Is that safe . It depends on the human behavior. If youre interacting with a stylist or someone doing your nails, if they are wearing a mask and gloves and you are doing the same thing as well, it could be safe, especially if its outdoors and good ventilation. People have to always understand there is a huge element, it just takes one mistake to create another outbreak. So you do want to kind of assume, unfortunately, that everyone around you in public is potentially able to spread coronavirus to you. Thats just something we all need to be cognizant of. I want to get to vaccines. The president has mentioned optimism in the past about getting a vaccine by the end of the year. Maybe by election day. He didnt specifically, i dont think, refer to this in the past half hour but are we on the track for that right now to have an improved vaccine before the end of the year . Were on track with breaking a new record with how quickly weve gotten a vaccine. The mumps vaccine took about four years. A zika prototype longer. There are some vaccines in phase three and we could see according to the pharmaceutical executive, a working vaccine by september but a working vaccine does not necessarily mean a vaccine thats ready for national distribution. So theres a big difference there. Right. So phase three for our viewers, that means youre in a large trial, right . Testing on humans and testing the efficacy. So i want to ask you though, some vaccine candidates are showing an immune response in human participants but does immune response necessarily mean it will protect you against the virus . Thats really what phase three is all about. Youre totally right. Immune response is going to be, depends on how theyre defining it because some vaccines are producing something called an antibody response, meaning your body is seeing this blueprint almost of the coronavirus and makes antibodies against it, so if and when you run into the real virus, youre ready to fight and another vaccine was able to not only create antibodies but also to create killer t cells or immune cells in your body ready as well, almost like double protection. Phase three is really important because phase three is able to show if that immune response can defend you against coronavirus better than other people who may run into it, so thats why phase three is so important for scientists to really study to see how well a vaccine works and also, one unanswered question, how long the response can last for. Some of the questions seem like we wouldnt be able to answer them except with the benefit of time, right . And thats what we dont have a lot of right now but let me ask you. If we have an fda approved vaccine, how long before enough doses get out there to the public . I mean, we have a little over 350 Million People before we get a dose and we dont even know one dose is enough. Maybe this particular vaccine, two or three doses. In terms of the protection taken in on a mass basis, how long . I dont know if i have a specific how long. There is different promises out there, so i believe, i might be wrong but i believe it was astrazeneca that received potentially billions of dollars to Start Development before they were completed with the vaccine. Several able to produce millions of doses, and so not only is there a promise of having those doses rolled out by next year, theres also another plan of saying they might be tiered. The people who get vaccine first are probably those who are going to be most at risk, such as Health Care Providers or people in very close proximity to patients, also, front line workers running our daytoday lives and then thats going to go down to tier two, three, and tier four. I dont know if we can say when every person is able to go off to their walgreens and get a Coronavirus Vaccine as opposed to saying, its available for people who really need it. Always good to talk to you. I know youll be back on abc7 with us at 4 30. Well see you then. Absolutely. Thanks, kristen. Folks, well take a short break on air. When we come back, local Baseball Team making National Headlines after a manager and some players took a knee du if youve been to a giants game, you definitely know our next guest. The p. A. Announcer, voice of the giants at oracle park, saw the manager and several players kneeling to protest Police Brutality and systemic racism. Brooks moon joining us today. Good to see you. Great to see you as well, thanks for having me. Absolutely. Gosh, waytited too long. You said it knocked you off your feet, you didnt see it coming at all . No, i had no idea it was coming at all. Although, our new has been outspoken and very active in the community in terms of social justice as well as doing wonderful work dealing with the covid19 pandemic, so it comes from activist parents. I was not prepared for that moment last night. I was really proud and really moved. I saw shortstoper there, he didnt kneel but put his hands on two players who did. What was his message there . I know gabe had a meeting with the team prior to the game saying that no matter where you stand on certain things, we support you. And i know that brandon feels very strongly about supporting the military and members of his family, so for him, its very personal. He supports the fight for social justice and black lives matter. Each player was supported in whatever way they wanted to respond. Gab becoming the first manager to do so, whatever the players want to do, theyll fully support. I can only speak for the giants and anxious to see what other teams around the league are going to do but i know ive had conversations and been in several meetings and the giants are very much committed to not making this a one game event, were going to be doing a lot at home games during the season with the giants fully supporting black lives matter and so its going to be throughout the abbreviated season and well into the future as well. They have committed to this and im going to make sure that it sticks. Its slow to catch on in the mlb, known for being particularly progressive and taking a stand on social equity issues and also just lacking black players in general in the league. Do you think all this suggests a fundamental change in the league and feel that in multiple ways . I certainly do. And its fortunate four years later after bruce maxwell, a former oakland athletic. The only major leaguer to take a knee, and i saw that he was filled with joy. We saw the moment yesterday because he had absolutely no support. I feel like at this moment in time, the way not just the has responded, not just how the bay area has responded but how the world has responded, the most powerful response ive seen in my lifetime and i think theres a real commitment to significant and lasting change. Even clayton kershaw, right . Normally we dont talk star players and pitchers but also said we must unapologetically say black lives matter. When you have big stars stepping up, it does signify change. Theres also those who say theyll now boycott the giants and mlb. Youve seen that tweeted and the president tweeted this morning that if he sees a player kneeling during the national anthem, a sign of great disrespect for country and our flag, the game is over for me. Does baseball not worry about that backlash . No. Mlb made a statement in solidarity of what the players did last night. The president of baseball operations also issued a statement saying how he stands behind the team and the players. This is the bay area. We do things differently here. And ive got some backlash as i was tweeting throughout the game as well. Not that i, i mean, i expect that. I just expect it tend people behind the keyboard with boycottmlb, i have a feeling theyll be tuned in. Theyll miss it