let s focus in on the pandemic now. the u.s. has set a new record with more than 158,000 americans hospitalized with covid. the omicron variant is pushing kentucky to the brink as well once again. the commonwealth now seeing the highest positivity rate since the start of the pandemic, nearly one in three people there are testing positive for covid. cnn s miguel marquez is live in kentucky. miguel, you went back to one of the hospitals that you visited in september. what did you see this time? reporter: this was st. clair health care in moorehead, kentucky, a regional hospital that serves 11 rural counties in northeastern kentucky. it s bad. it s as bad as it was in september. some days are worse than others, and they are not sure where they are on this current wave and even if they get through it, they re not sure if there is another wave coming. health care workers are flat-out
orders. reporter: the hospital is going to turn a tent into a treatment unit. i just worry we re not going to have the staffing capacity to meet demand. reporter: hospitals across the bluegrass state so full with covid-19 patients almost the entire system stretched to the limit. so i get really fearful when we need beds for folks who their diabetes is out of control and they need an insulin drip or they have regular or acute cardio pneumonia. we might not have a bed for them. if you come with a heart attack and you need an icu bed we probably won t have a bed for you. reporter: st. clair health care crunches their own numbers. they believe they probably have about three weeks left in case increases and hospitalizations before they decline. that woman we met, middleton she is getting better, going to go home soon. she s encouraging her family to