Yesterday it looked scary. But the air quality wasnt quite so bad because most of the smoke was locked up in that layer above us and we had hada fairly substantial marine layer. L pollutants are coming down to the surface level. Let me show you a graphic level. We have a weak ened marine layer and with calm wind at the surface, remember we showed you that layer cake graphic yesterday . Here it is, the bottom layer is the marine layer and the top layer is smoke. Now the marine layer weakened all and all the matter is am coulding to the surface. You can see on the water vapor image, bringing smoke from the oregon fires and from the Northern California fires down into the bay area. So our air quality has diminished significantly. Heres a look at current conditions. The orange circles poor air quality and the red is dangerous. That is the pattern across the north bay, bay shore hin overlio the south bay. Moderate air quality is in the south bay. That is okay but great. This is our air quality outlook for the next couple of days. Well have another spare the air day tomorrow with poor air quality expected. And we are looking for some modest improvement in air quality on saturday and sunday. All right. Moderate is bier this weekend. Katie has the same story i have. That is when will it be not so smokey anymore . Thats hard to say. That all depends on how soon fires that are burning now are contained. And i mean contained in a big way. And also depends on how fortunate we are in the future with no new fires starting. If fires are currently burning are contained and dwoent hawe d new fires developing, that will diminish the amount of smoke coming into the air. Well see clearer skies cleaner air and life will be better. There is no way to predict that. We are in the fire season. This is time of year when we can expect fires to develop. That is true. I guess you cant answer justins question either, right . He wants to know when is the good air quality going to be next week . And you were just saying with you hope. So we just dont know. Again, if the firesre cueny burning are contained and theyre pretty well contained right now. Some of them are more than 90 contained, that will h so if those two factors hold, we can have much better air quality next week. Right now we have fires burn shing arous burning in california and in oregon and that smoke is coming down into our area. As long as were locked into that pattern, we cant expect significant improvement in our air quality. All right. Spencer, thank you so much. Dont go away. Were going to bring you back in our next block. Right now, lets bring abc news special correspondent. Doctor, nice to have you with us. He said the air quality is worse today. We know it, we feel it, our eyes and noses and throats tell us that. Can you help us understand the air quality index numbers. It is high, but what does that mean . It is high. Its scary high. Now when people go to purple air or are air. Gov, what theyre looking at is a measure of the pollutants in the air. One that everyone is concerned about is pm 2. 5. When you see that number from 0 to about 300, higher is worse. I dont want to get into the mab mathematical details, but that is a measure of a certain pa lieutenantant in the sky. We worry but that because that can get really deep into your lungs. Anything below 50 is generally healthy. If you do 100, it will be relatively okay. When you get to 100 to 200, thats when we start to worry about people that have underlying conditions or sensitive to the outside air. Anything beyond that is everyone being affected. Today there are 300s all over san francisco. Okay. What is the easiest way to understand what pm is . Its a great question. Pm essentially stands for par tick lat matter. What that is saying is everything that we are breathing outside. It could be a combination of small solids and liquid particles. 2. 5 is a measure of that. 2. 5 is measuring to micro meters. Very, very, very tiny. To give you an idea, a human air, that is going to be about 50 to 70 micro meters. So were talking about 30 times smaller than that. Small enough to go all the way deep into your respiratory system and into your blood. Very small. All right. Wow. San mateo countys officer declared a health emergency. I think he issued it yesterday due to the Public Health threat of hazard waste from wildfires. What kind of waste are we talking about and what are the effects on people exposed. What im assuming to is the waste that comes out when you have the combuston from wildfires. Its no the clean air. You have plastic and metal thats are going up there. So there are several studies and surveys out that though an increase in e. R. Visits for people that have asthma or cardiopulmonary disease. The American Heart Association was able to show and not just breathing problems, but also people who have Heart Disease or, you know, issues with oxygen in the heart or irregular heart rates were also at risk for going to ers. Its an extra notice for out there for anyone that has underlying conditions or sensitive groups such as young children, pregnant women or the elderly. Essentially, Everyone Needs to be on high alert when the air quality is this bad. Right. You mention asthma. So sabrina has a question for you. What about people who have to work even though they have asthma . I assume she means she has to work outdoors. What advice would you give . If you have to work outdoors and you have asthma, i really hope, first of all, that your employer is taking keeping an eye out for you. If you also have your medications at hand. You have the rescue inhaler available, check in with your doctor and not missing certain medications and make sure you have the proper mask. Depending on what your job, is if you have to be outside, for while fire moesmoke, m95 is wh you need to use. Again, we dont want to hoard the masks. Regardless, if you have asthma and start to feel any symptoms with the weather out here, get yourself inside, get to clean air and if you need to, seek medical care. Okay. Good advice. You mentioned masks. Alex wants to know should we wear a mask . He said i feel like it is trapping the smoke and were in turn just in hailing more smoke. Is that true . What do you think . Kind of. So heres the troubling part. They help against coronavirus which form a barrier are not going to protect you against pm 2. 5. Pm 2. 5 is really small. It is able to get around air masks that you might be wearing because of covid19. Best thing to do is stay away. Stay inside right now. Now one thing i want to mention, there might be some confusion for people that look this up. The sarscovid 2 virus iss smaller than 2. 5. But the droplets that youre going to cough or sneeze out are much bigger than that. So thats why a simple barrier mask can protect you against coronavirus but not wildfire smoke. Okay. Robert has a question. Can all the bad air cause cancer . We talked about the short term effects on people. This is more of a long term question. What do you think . I cant make a definitive claim on that. There are studies out there which have shown the association between certain types of cancer and long term exposure to pollution. Definitely if if youre in an area or part of the country or world where youre constantly exposed to this type of air pollution on a day to day basis, there is reported risk of cancer from it this. Now i wouldnt necessarily say there is if youre just outside during wildfire season. But im particularly concerned for people who may not have shelter right now or who are going through this on a regular basis in certain cities. Remember, pollution is not just coming from our wildfire smoke, it is coming from our environment, cars, cities, et cetera. This is true. This is my question. I think a lot of pictures, of course, of ash on peoples wind shields and everything lately is ashmore or less hazardous than the smoke . Its weird. By virtue of the fact that ash is bigger, i would guess that the smoke is more two things to note about ash. Ash can absolutely cause outside other irritations on such as, you know, your eyes burning, coughing, things like that. But also where there is ash, there is likely also going to be smaller particles you could breathe in. So 2. 5 is also includes things like, you know, ozone. We talk about particulate matter, cash rbon monoxide and other dangerous gases in the air. All right, doctor, well take a short break on the air. Over on our Facebook Live, youll continue to answer your questions and when and we are back with abc 7 news special correspondent dr. Patel. Weve chatting during break on Facebook Live. Now well focus on the latest on covid19. If you have questions, please post them on our Facebook Live stream. But lets start with the snapshot of covid19 in california. Weve been seeing 2,000 new cases per day. That is compared to about 10,000 new cases a month ago. Several counties are no longer in the serious purple tier and indoor businesses are starting to reopen. How well are we doing . Does that mean were doing much p better . I think it s i think it does meep that we mean that were not doing really well proof but the lockdowns tally helped. The sheltering in place is making a difference and wearing a mask. All this together has really you are deuced that person to person transmission. There is no other test that the interventions have worked than what were seeing right now. I just really hope we keep the trajectory as businesses reopen and as we start to talk about schools and universities coming back in session. Definitely. The big covid19 headline comes from the president. Watergate journalist Bob Woodwards new book reveals taped interviews he did with President Trump. You hear him saying back in february he knew the virus was airborne and deadly but downplaying it not to cause panic. Some people are stunned to hear. That others not so much. Did doctors understand back in february that covid19 was this serious . This is kind of an interesting thought experiment now. Looking back on february and wondering what we all knew and what we didnt know. Now heres the thing, we only know what information was actually put out and transparent. So that is the information we were getting from National Leaders such as President Trump what he was hearing from china and cdc and w. H. O. Information available at that time. Rest was based on speculation. Case in point this is why doctors were not coming out in february and saying Everyone Needs to wear a mask. If you remember we were saying that on air in february. People didnt need to wear masks. The Surgeon General was saying that. Yeah. Dr. Fauci was saying that. At the time, we didnt know everything. We didnt pretend to know the entire trajectory either. But some of this information, especially comment about it being in the air and the fact that the virus could be in the air, i wonder where that information was coming from in early february. Again, had that information been really put out, there people may have thought differently and not just scientists and physicians, but the general public may have thought maybe this is going to be a little bit more serious. And even if everyone was wrong, which we were, just recognizing the fact that this could be a big deal could have kind of had everyone just been a hill on edge and we swront seen this big discrepancy between science and people wanting to live normal lives. Again, we were struggling with that for months and months. You know, people still are refusing to wear masks. And weve seen this huge difference in different parts of the country. I think all this could have been prevented. Even now you see a huge range in terms of behavior and how people respond to containing covid19. Okay. In the interesting of learning, were going to play our game two truths and a lie. Today just so that im not the only one in the hot seat, dr. Patel, were bringing in Spencer Christian who normally knows all the answers. All right. Lets do it. Okay. Here we go. Two truths and a lie. One of these is not accurate. Me which one that is. Round one is about the covid19 vaccine race. Number one astrazeneca had to pause their Clinical Trial because of suspected transfer in one of the volunteers. Number two, according to a recent yougov poll, 50 of americans feel Vaccine Development is being driven by politics. And number three, ivanka trump volunteered to go on the view and get the vaccine when its approved in response to a comment from whoopi goldberg. Which one of those is not true . Wow. You did kick up the difficulty one or two or three notches today. This is tough. Im going to make spencer go first. Okay. Im going to go with number two because i think the percentage of people who feel the Vaccine Development is political is a little smaller than that. A little lower than that. Yeah. That would have been i think astrazeneca did have to put it on pause, at least in india. On facebook, there are several people voting for c, ivanka trump offering to go on the view and getting that vaccine. So from watching who wants to be a millionaire, you know, largest percentage of the audience votes, im going to say c that is a lie. Christian used the line. Its no the fair. She is right. Ee varp ivanka made that response due to something that joy behar said, not whoopi goldberg. Less people think it is millie driven. 78 of people think it is politically driven. Its everywhere. Wow. Here we go. Round two. Round two is going to be about general headlines h so number one, Johns HopkinsUniversity Reports were close to 27. 9 million cases worldwide. Number two, cdc recently issued a statement saying that the help nl screenings at airports are actually not that effective at diagnosing and finding cases. And number three, a new danish model came out actually approves that eight feet of physical distance is opt mall. Wow. Okay, i think ill go first this time. Sure. Last time i kind of cheated by making spencer go first. I got the audience response. Im going to say the sly probably the danish study just because i feel like they probably said something closer to ten feet. I would imagine its more than we imagined. I do think personally that those hospital screenings im sorry, airport screenings may not be that effective. I know its about 27 million. I think its c. Actually, i totally agree with you. Follow your lead this time, i agree with you, c is the one that is not true. Sfwh youre both right. There is it no danish map model. They say that eight feet is opt mall if youre in a confined area with a lot of crowding. I think its important to note that with number one we are still in the middle of this pandemic. Cases are everywhere. And number two, its important to note that not everyone is going to present with a fever or with symptoms. A lot of people are still asymptomatic or presymptomatic. It comes down to Health Education and people doing their part. You did well. 50 . Thats not too bad. I thought i got 100 . You did. Yeah, i did. You cheated. Im throwing the first one away. The audience helped. All right. Spencer, that was fun. Thank you for playing. We learned a lot which is why we do it. Dr. Patel, one quick question before we go. Thatcy just got my flu shot. That is the earliest i ever got it. Do you advise that . Is that something doctors are asking people to do early this year . We are. There is a general statement right now saying that this is one of the most if not the most important flu shot people are going to get. Now were urging people, asking people to get the flu shot before halloween. Its a general metricw flu season coming, we cant predict how bad the season is going to be. Also, no one knows what could happen or what could potentially happen if you get infected with both coronavirus and the flu. We havent seen it before. We see Hospital Capacity go to dangerous level with flu alone. We would hate to see that happen with the twin demic. So get your shots. Yes. No twin demic. Thank you so much, doctor. Always fun and informative. So i do appreciate it. Talk to you soon. Thank you. Stay indoors. Stay indoors, everyone. Stay indoors. Well take a short break and be back with more with the spokesperson for the bay area air quality manage district with [narrator] did you just reward yourself for spending a perfectly reasonable amount of time on the couch with tacos from grubhub . Grubhubs gonna reward you for that with a 5 off perk. doorbell rings [crowd] grubhub all right. Lets turn the conversation back to smoke and air quality. Joining us now to talk about whats going on and what can you do is aaron richardson, spokesperson for the bay area air Quality Management district. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. So were getting a lot of questions from our viewers about, gosh, the smoke out there is really terrible right now. How can i keep that from seeping into my house . What can i do . I bet youre getting a lot of calls. What do you tell people . Well, really the best thing to do when air quality gets unhealthy for people is stay indoors with the windows and doors closed if possible. One thing can you also do is pick up a portable air filter that you can use and set up a clean room in your house that and filter the air in that house. If you cant stay home and the air is really bad, there are also Clean Air Centers available in various localities. Pg e has a listing and the Health Department will have a listing of those. Lock hand has a question for us. Shes wondering, how safe is the air in her house . When people are not sure, how can they find that information . Well, one thing that we would recommend is just seeing what the air quality is like in your neighborhood and on our baaqmd. Gov website. There is a map with the epa air analysis system. Does it keep track of the changing air quality throughout the day. So its really good resource. The air quality inside your house is going to be pretty similar to what is outside. So we really recommend contracting the conditions throughout the day on that map. And one way the bad air gets in, even if you have windows and doors closed, are there certain [ inaudible ] are there things can you do to form the seal a little better and make sure that air stays out . You know, again, the good thing is knowing were going to be having the wildfire seasons it seems like for the next few years. It would be good to weather strip the house. You know, caulk and seal, replace old windows and doors. Make sure the more sort of airtight you have the surfaces of your windows and doors the better off it will be for if you have an aircondition, visit on recirculate but its not bringing air in from outside. That can make a big difference in keeping air quality inside your house clean. That is a good idea to do if youre in the car. Set the air if youre in a smokey area, set it on recirculate zblcht okay and i know youre not in the business of endorsing any particular product. I wont ask you. To but we do have viewers wondering when it comes to air purifiers, is more expensive necessarily better . And what to look for . Well, what they really what we recommend is there is a variety of these on the. But we recommend that just the plain hepa air purifier that is nonozone emitting to work mechanically and draws air in and it filtered it those are ones we recommend. It can set people back 200 to thousands. There is a big range of expenses. The main thing is there is a Rating System for how much air it draws in and you would want to Pay Attention to the space that you want to use as your clean air room and then sort of make sure that you buy a filter that is, you know, he quif tloent that space. All right. Aaron information. I appreciate it. Welcome back. Thank you so much for joining us today on our ibt active show. Getting answers today we got answers from forecaster Spencer Christian about the smoke that has returned and that orange glow is gone. Spencer says look for moderate air by this weekend. Dr. Patel talked about the smoke and krid covid19 and we did ou trivia, two trunths and a lie. Tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. President trump before the cameras late today. What he said about his own words recorded by bob woodward. The president defending those recorded comments in which he admitted to downplaying the dangers of the coronavirus, telling woodward he knew the virus was deadlier than the flu, and that it goes through the air. You breathe the air, thats how its passed. Different from what he told the american people, and jon karl pressing the president. How he responded. The horror unfolding tonight for so many families. The Deadly Wildfires exploding. The death toll rising tonight. The staggering new images coming in. Towns sav m of his own family. Authorities then finding the bodies of his 12yearold son and the boys grandmother. Li