Joining us is an Infectious Disease specialist. Thank you for being here. My pleasure. Thanks. Kristen im going to take half a minute to embarrass you. Youve been named winner of the carl sagan prize for science popularization. Heres the website with the announcement. This is for your research on a variety of Infectious Diseases and for helping us better understand and combat covid. Congratulations. This is huge. Im a little bit red now, but thanks for bringing this up. Its been really meaningful for me to work with you and a lot of professionals during the pandemic. I think its so important for all of us to communicate with each other. Kristen its well deserved. Congrats. We do appreciate you. We want to start the less embarrassing part, with monkeypox. Zuckerberg sf general is expanding their vaccine clinic hours. Does that mean supply is improving . I think what it means is that weve gotten or are getting to the people who are really intent and enthusiastic about getting it. Im really worried about the next group, which is the essential workers, the people who cant take time off work, the people who are closeted or not comfortable with lining up in a public clinic to get a monkeypox vaccine. For that next level, we have to do a lot more outreach so that transmission becomes controlled. Kristen no doubt. Speaking of groups that may be in greater danger, that would be people who live in communal situations, who face their own risk. I want to focus our conversation on College Students going back to school. This is when its happening, parents moving there kids back to school. How concerned are you about that type of living environment, in terms of the risks and potential contact points . Peter thats a great question. Im not very concerned, but im not very concerned right now. As things change from our Risk Assessment will change. It may change. Like you said, College Students are in the unique environment. A lot of contact, they are very communal. Weve seen other diseases spread in that setting. So i think right now, low risk, very low risk. But if we dont control this and we bleed over into the general population, college kids may be that population, then maybe the transition group. Kristen i havent seen a lot of universities really address this the way they have covid. Lets do talk about how to minimize the risk. And lets start with just how its transmitted. The kind of close contact. The information students should know as they make their decisions. Peter so, i think whats really crucial for everyone to know is theres a hierarchy of risk. By far from the majority of risk is skin to skin contact and in an intimate setting. The reason this is important, at the end of the monkeypox the day, monkeypox is an animal virus, and its hard to get it into humans. Its not like sarscov2 or other viruses that are more niche. You need to have a high inoculum. Make a hole in the skin from microabrasions and you can get the virus across. Bedding, if somebody has scabs and they have monkeypox and they lay on the bed, the scabs can go up in the air and you can breathe it in. Respiratory spread, you need three to six hours at close contact, like deep kissing. But not 15 minutes for a covid situation. Kristen a lot of parents have asked and ive seen this on facebook groups with parents, their kids do go to parties and nightclubs, in which there may be hours of sustained contact, in which they are close to people who are sweating, close to you, respiratory exchange and all of that. Would you suggest kids avoid that . I guess you can suggest it. They are probably not going to anyway. Peter it all depends on your risk threshold right now. In an average setting, like going to a festival or a concert, the risk is generally low in an average person having monkeypox. You have to think that your average person you are going to meet has monkeypox, which is different from covid. And with that exposure, you are going to get monkeypox. At the end of the day, some Risk Mitigation strategies might be wearing more clothing. We know when people are in public and they have rashes, if you cover it with clothing, its much less likely to transmit. Kristen lets talk about some of the particulars of dorm living, communal laundry rooms, dining rooms, bathrooms. So, any potential risks in those areas and what we can do to mitigate them . Peter i think probably the highest risk again would be in intimate settings. When College Students get together. But, apart from that, and then the person has to be having risk behaviors, multiple sex partners, beforehand. Other communal settings might be in high Contact Sports settings, like wrestling. Thats a typical kind of situation in college, where you can have a lot of transmission, skin to skin. Unlike football, you are clothed, you are wearing year. Wrestling is a little bit more exposed. That kind of stuff. Less so in the dorms for your average. You could be cuddling next to someone, it doesnt have to be sexual, for a very long period. But the person you are cuddling with has to have enough risk for you to be worried. Kristen isnt that cuddling possibly we dont know for sure the cause of the case, the first suspected human to animal transmission of dog owners . Peter yes, that is definitely not definitely, but highly likely as a cause of why the pet of the couple who had monkeypox got monkeypox, because the dog slept in their bed and got it 12 days after. Kristen thats a concern, too. College students in the dorm rooms sit on their friends beds, sheets. Theres not usually catches. Is it something to be concerned with . Peter with your average person, not at this point. There are silver linings. As we get more known vaccines, because of the incubation. Incubation period is so long, even after exposure, but you find out the person you are with a couple days ago has diagnosis of monkeypox, you can get a vaccine and arrest the disease progression completely, even after the virus is in you, within four days. Kristen i just want to revisit this. I think i can anticipate that the risk will be very low, but ive seen parents ask about doing the laundry should they start using hot water . Should they do a prewash or clean the machine, so to speak . Are those things that you would consider . Peter the thing about monkeypox, as opposed to Something Like norovirus that causes diarrhea and vomiting on cruise ships, monkeypox has im just reaching out for my monkeypox here. This envelope is super fragile. You can use detergent to really disrupt this envelope and its easy to destroy. Regular washing, and the cdc recommends that, would get rid of the monkeypox. On surfaces, if somebody has known monkeypox in your living situation, the cdc and the epa actually has agreed. On the back of every detergent or disinfectant, you can see a number, you can look up on the epa website, and i can tell you if its effective against monkeypox. Something like clorox definitely works. This envelope is very fragile. Kristen good to know. Early monkeypox infections, they share some of the same symptoms with covid, sore throat, nasal congestion, coughing, and that can prevent present before the lesions. What should people do if they are not sure what they have . Peter we should have a low threshold for checking and doing a test in monkeypox. A lot of people focus on the skin, but there are a lot of things you can have before the skin, particularly if you have lesions in your mouth and other places, like engineer in your urethra or rectal area. You can encourage your clinicians to send that for pcr. But the big difference between covid symptoms, which look similar to monkeypox, you have big lymph nodes to monkeypox. That might tip off some people to get checked. The other thing is not to panic. The rash will come maybe a couple days after. If youre severe, we have more therapeutics we can give people, as well, like an hopefully soften the blow of disease. Kristen all right. Dr. Peter chinhong, dont go away. You will be back after the break to address kristen lets come back on tv. Kristen we are back with ucsf Infectious Disease specialist dr. Peter chinhong, winner of the carl sagan prize for science popularization. Today, we are focusing on disease prevention as kids return to school, college campuses. We covered monkeypox in our last segment. Now we will turn our attention to polio and covid. Polio has been detected in new york city wastewater. What does this mean about means of spread and how widespread it may be . Peter a lot of people are worried, but not panicked. They are worried because the fact that all of these samples in four geographic locations now, orange county, new york, new york city they are all detecting the very similar genetic fingerprints of poliovirus, meaning that it may have been this individual who came from who is from auckland, when abroad, got polio, and is paralyzed. He might have transmitted it to a lot of other people. Whatever happened, a lot of people are having it in their system and shedding it in their wastewater. And thats what they are seeing. Kristen until this recent uptick, the polio vaccine had virtually wiped out the disease for generations of people around the world. Why the resurgence right now . Peter yeah, there are two things. One is that not everybody is becoming immunized at the rates we would like to see. Immunizations have actually dropped for the first time in 30 years during the covid pandemic. We dont even have the actual numbers yet as to the immunization rates. California, some of the strictest laws, where you need medical exemptions rather than personal. Kristen otherwise you cant go to school, right . Peter a lot of people are doing homeschooling, so thats not captured by the official numbers, which is looking at the percentage of kindergartners with polio vaccination. We saw it with the disneyland measles outbreak, that there are pockets of unvaccinated individuals in california for routine childhood immunizations. Kristen if you are vaccinated, though, and got the whole series, are you 100 perspective protected . Peter i never like to say anything is 100 , but its in the high 90 s, in general. We think immunization, protection, will carry on. Putting on my science hat, it depends on everybody else around you. It works that way because our immunization rates have traditionally been so high, so it doesnt matter if you have a little less protection. Your neighbor is still protected, so he or she is protecting you. Kristen thats how Public Health works, right. You were talking about some of the kids who are homeschooled, who maybe didnt have to meet that requirement, didnt get vaccinated. State senator scott weiner in San Francisco has a bill letting 15yearolds to 17yearolds making choices without parental consent for vaccinations. Do you support that . Peter 100 . Public health is an individual health only. It helps individuals, and thats a bonus, but it helps all of us. This polio situation with wastewater detection not only in new york, but also london and israel this is happening all over the world right now. That protects all of us. Kristen do we as adults need a booster shot, given the situation with polio right now . Peter i think the cdc has traditionally recommended boosters to people at higher risk of reexposure to the real thing. If you were traveling to afghanistan or pakistan, that might be time to get a booster. If you are going to the hajj and mecca. Some countries require proof of polio vaccinations. Some countries require proof of polio vaccination before you exit, so that you dont bring it back to that country. Kristen i want to turn to covid for the last couple minutes we have. With many colleges not doing arrival testing anymore this year or even providing rapid tests anymore, do you think the time is right to end those procedures . Peter its controversial on that end. At the beginning point, it probably is a good idea to do a sweep of everyone. Ongoing testing, probably not for sure. I think the cdc is going more towards the mention of serious disease. We do have towards prevention of serious disease. We do have high levels of immunity from going to the hospital, but it is disruptive. Thats my conundrum. Overall, if pushed to answer, we are in a much better place than we were at the last time schools opened. Kristen finally, would you give your college kid a booster if they are eligible before they go back . Or would you say wait for the new one that targets omicron, like the moderna one u. K. Just approved, become the first country to do it . What do you think . Peter if your College Student is eligible to get a booster, get it now. If you dont know whos going to pay for it, 10 billion still in congress. We dont know for what populations will be approved. In the u. K. , its still in the older population, for example. Number three, we dont know when it will be ready. I have confidence we will be there, but i dont know when it will come, maybe september, maybe october. Kristen dr. Peter chinhong, winner of the 2022 carl sagan prize for science popularization for sharing medical knowledge with us. Really appreciate it. That was the last time im going to mention it. Seriously, we appreciate you. All right. We will be right back. We will dive into Mental Health and the critical shortage of workers as many across california at the picket line today. 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And this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock so your rate can never go up for any reason. Options start at 9. 95 a month, plus you get a 30day money back guarantee. So call now for free information and youll also get this free beneficiary planner. Use this valuable guide to record your Important Information and give helpful direction to your loved ones with your final wishes. And its yours free just for calling. So call now for free information. Kristen thousands of Mental Health care workers at Kaiser Permanente began an openended strike across california today, asking the provider to hire more staff to meet the surging demand for Mental Health patients. A study found there is a critical shortage of Mental Health experts in california and nationwide. Joining us live now to talk about that and how the shortages being addressed, an advocate. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Kristen this strike calls attention to a shortage of Mental Health workers. How serious is the situation . The Behavioral HealthWorkforce Shortage in california and across the country has read crisis levels reached crisis levels. Only one in three people receive the care they need in california. 31 counties with a high need for Mental HealthServices ReportWorkforce Shortage. As we are seeing, the sickest among us are cycling between our streets, jails, and emergency rooms. With us marshaling all of our resources to support them, those with mild symptoms are not getting the initial care that they need, continuing to deteriorate and unfortunately entering this inhumane cycle. Really, if we are going to ensure that californians get the care that they need, we need to make sure that we have a welltrained, well resourced staff in place. Kristen i want to get into how we can develop that welltrained staff. Lets talk about why there is such a shortage first. Was in a crisis even before the pandemic . Its been brewing for a number of years. It reached crisis levels during the pandemic. Weve seen a health care Workforce Shortage across the industry, including the Behavioral Health work force. Theres a number of factors. One large component is that we have an aging workforce and people are starting to retire. Another huge component is burnout, where staff are faced with incredibly long hours, difficult caseloads, and often really difficult working conditions. Of course, one of the biggest driving factors is low pay. Kristen it seems like a vicious cycle going on. The more you have a shortage, the more the existing Mental Health care workers are overworked, therefore getting stressed out themselves and wanting to leave the field. It just kind of compounds. You were talking about seeking a longterm solution. What might that look like . Tara really, what we ultimately need is to increase the diversity of our workforce, address recruitment and retention issues, and begin to rethink what the Behavioral Health workforce should look like and who is part of it. Thats going to take making our training and academic programs more accessible and applicable to the world would the real world. Its going to take addressing the pay issues. It will take reimagining how we work and the way that we work in the Behavioral Health space. It will also mean relooking at our career ladders and making sure that our workers have a place to grow, are inspired, and continue to be supported throughout their careers. We are really fortunate here in california. The budget this year included a 1. 5 billion Health Workforce investment, which will help address the Behavioral HealthWorkforce Shortage in the Workforce Shortage throughout the health care industry. It will support workers Like Community health workers, create a pipeline for social workers, and so much more. To your point, a lot more remains to be done. Part of the problem in fixing the longterm problem here is we still have a lot of Unanswered Questions about a lot of the drivers and what some of the best recommendations are. Thats why the Steinberg Institute is partnering with San Francisco state senator scott wiener on our sponsored legislation, senate bill 964, which would commission a landscape analysis to get at the crux of this issue, so we can make this longerterm investment and change in the Behavioral Health care space. Kristen there is a new resource or at least a new phone number for the National Suicide prevention lifeline, designed to make it easier. To talk to us about the new number, 988 . Tara 988 is a federal number that was established by congress and the fcc, in partnership with the president in 2020, and it Just Launched july 16 nationwide. Now, callers across the country can simply dial 988 instead of the previous 10 digit cumbersome number and be immediately connected with a trained Mental Health crisis counselor. If you are experiencing any sort of Behavioral Health crisis, we want to make sure you know you can call that number and be immediately connected with trained staff who can help get you the care that you need. Kristen thats a great resource. We have 30 seconds. What should people do if they find they are unable to get a Mental Health care appointment in a timely manner and they are really suffering . Tara if you are experiencing delays through your insurance provider you can, contact the department of managed health cares help center by going to their website at dmhc. Ca. Gov to issue a complaint. Kristen tara, thank you so much for your time and insight today. Tara thank you so much. Kristen if you or someone you know needs an ally when it comes to Mental Health, you can find local resources by going to abc7news. Com takeaction. You can get our live newscasts, breaking news, weather, and more with our streaming tv app. Just search abc 7 bay and every search you make, every click you take, every move you make, every step you take, ill be watching you. The internet doesnt have to be duckduckgo is a free all in one privacy app with a built in search engine, web browser, one click data clearing and more stop Companies Like google from watching you, by downloading the app today. Duckduckgo privacy, simplified. Kristen thanks so much for joining us on this interactive show, getting answers. We will be here every weekday at 3 00 on air and on livestream, answering your questions. World news tonight is coming up next. Tonight, breaking news involving former President Trump and that search at maralago. Tonight, the Justice Department now asking a federal magistrate judge to keep the affidavit sealed after releasing the search warrant. The doj now arguing that releasing the affidavit would compromise their ongoing criminal investigation, with National Security implications. Making it clear a grand jury is involved. And tonight, abc news confirming federal authorities are now trying to retrace the classified documents they recovered. How did they get there . Who had access to them along the way. And federal investigators looking at surveillance from inside maralao. Pierre thomas with late reporting. Also breaking an arrest in p. A. Tonight