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>"Omicron has been a bitch so far. It seems like it is causing hospitalizations in the unvaccinated population, maybe not at the same "rate" as Delta, but in hi
by nickff 5y ago
>"Omicron has been a bitch so far. It seems like it is causing hospitalizations in the unvaccinated population, maybe not at the same "rate" as Delta, but in high enough numbers that we're going to run out of hospital beds in my area. "
One of the problems seems to be that hospital staff are so expensive (because of their regulated monopoly) that we've been running with no spare capacity in normal times. Most other systems have 20% or more extra capacity.
- dragontamer 5y agoWe've literally never run out of hospital space before, including the 2020 winter surge of COVID19/Alpha (which hit us harder than Delta did). This Omicron is worse than anything we've seen before locally. Crisis levels / Emergency levels of hospitalization have been reached. Yeah, we've had a nursing crisis and our health care system is shoddier than many people realize. But Omicron is clearly different.
- nickff 5y agoI agree with everything you say here, but most other systems (outside of healthcare and hospitals in particular) run with greater than 20% spare capacity. For example, your local pizza restaurant can probably produce 20% above their expected volume tonight if needed.
- dragontamer 5y agoI mean, some hospitals in my area are reportedly at 140% stated capacity or something. We're well above "20%". This is crisis / emergency time. The emergency declaration will reduce surgeries by 20% (going from 140% capacity to 112% capacity). Like, its obviously not enough, but... its something.
- pjc50 5y ago> Most other systems have 20% or more extra capacity. I think it's been fairly clear in the pandemic that they don't.
- nickff 5y agoI was talking about other systems like HVAC, or computers, or any other system you can think of. I was not comparing one specific healthcare system to another.