Hospitals aren’t full but rather empty. My wife is an ICU nurse. Her hospital on a regular day last year had 19 ICU beds, with half of them occupied at any giv

Hospitals aren’t full but rather empty. My wife is an ICU nurse. Her hospital on a regular day last year had 19 ICU beds, with half of them occupied at any given time. These are beds for patients who require level 2 or 3 support...basically constant monitoring by a nurse with specialized training, and support for respiratory or 2 or more failing organ systems. Not all nurses are certified for this level of care (CCRN certification), and there is a limit to the amount of equipment needed for a bed on this floor (you've heard of ventilator shortages). Fast forward to today. Her hospital expanded from 19 beds that used to be 50% utilized to 38 beds that are 95% utilized. That leaves only 2 open beds in the ICU. So if 10 people get hospitalized for COVID-19, and 3 of them have to go to the ICU, 1 will have to be transferred to another hospital. The rest of the hospital is pretty empty. The elective surgery clinic, allergy clinic, hearing clinic, orthopedic clinic...these are all closed. The emergency department is also open. So a hospital that normally has a few hundred beds seems empty, but the ICU that normally has 10 patients has more than triple that. It is a contradiction that the hospital is both empty and over capacity at the same time.