not the norm that his aides in the room are always wearing the kn-95 masks, the strongest protection when they were around the president, but the president himself often is not. he has it on and off, given sometimes the circumstance. we also know, as he was traveling to massachusetts yesterday, aboard air force one, he was in the cabin with some of the members of congress who were traveling with him. there were photos posted by some of them with the president, on air force one yesterday. so as the white house now enters into contact tracing mode, there are going to be some lawmakers getting probably some outreach as well as all the other staff who are traveling with him as well. i can t help but wonder, as we re looking at these live pictures, of the first lady in detroit, michigan, when was is the last time the first lady was with the president, and i m wondering if they have plans to
as a result of what we are seeing right now, the numbers you just showed on the screen. what are they to do is the question? when can they feel fine and come out of isolation and not be a list to number, five days picked by the cdc when it might be safe. can i show you, kate, if we have the graphic. if you look from day 10 to day zero, for example, the question is, how likely are you still to be contagious at day five? it s about a third of people will still be contagious at day five. that s the first thing. why day five? a third of people may be contagious. second of all, no tests required at that point, will they still be contagious in the third thing is the cdc is relying on three ply cloth masks, which may have been effective earlier, this omicron so easily transmits you need the higher filtration quality masks like the n-95 or
it doesn t do anything about the fact that hospitals are still overloaded. there are still staffing shortages, all those problems. in our hospital, we re about a 600-bed hospital. at our peak last year, 162 patients in the hospital for or with covid. now, it is closer to 258. if they get diagnosed with covid in the hospital, they still need to go into infection protocol, personal protective equipment, all of that still needs to be utilized. it s a huge drain on the system overall. sanjay, the cdc, the washington post is reporting this morning, is considering changing its recommendations on masks. saying to wear the n-95 or k-95 if you can instead of cloth masks. why? maybe another question is, why, finally, are they going to change this? yeah. i mean, look, this one surprises me. at the beginning of the pandemic, there was maybe a reason not to widely recommend those masks, these high-filtration masks. but they ve been in good supply for some time now.
kn-95 masks. they should be promoting that. i think the numbers will come down eventually. it s a question of how quickly we can bring them down, no strategies need to be employed. are you concerned this new cdc guidance saying you can take a test or not, you know, after five day, that it will effectively just discourage americans from testing? yeah. i do. i think it will sort of create the lines that we have already seen. people who are really serious about this and have been you know very careful throughout, they re likely to test, to look at the results of the tests and follow the guidance, which is to stay in isolation if you follow the tests. if it s optional, people don t want to stay in isolation, i think it will minimize the value of the tests. quickly, kate, let me reiterate. this is something you and i have talk about. two different types of tests, cr