capacity in the beginning of the pandemic. to get an idea of how covid was tracking and the numbers looked for past two years about 70%. meaning 70% of beds and hospitals were full. that is until this week. when the number went up to about 80%. the last time we saw an 80% was in january of 2022 at the height of omicron. this number, this past week, it jumped about 8% over the last two weeks. wow! and there are certain states that actually have even higher numbers. so rhode island we re talking over 90%. places like massachusetts, oregon, washington, the numbers are over 85%. and there is a lot of things contributing to this. we ve talked about the tripledemic and rsv and the flu and rsv is peaking and coming down. the flu cases can still high. we just heard rochelle walensky say that hospitalizations for flu are the highest in almost a decade. 78,000 total hospitalizations this year already. so, that is definitely contributing.
it will take about seven to ten days for the tests to arrive. so with cdc director rochelle walensky say that she s getting media training to help with communication. if you re positive, you should probably stay at home. a negative doesn t mean you re not contagious and we need to be clear about that. so if that s clear to you, explain it to me. let s bring in special report anchor bret baier to interviewed the cdc director. it s a big deal. it s not a small thing at all. she s conceding that she s not done well in the messaging. the quote that you read is not that clear as far as what you re supposed to do.