> ..like terrorist attacks or earthquakes or tornadoes... they would be able to increase capacity by 20% They can, for brief periods. You start by overflowing

> ..like terrorist attacks or earthquakes or tornadoes... they would be able to increase capacity by 20% They can, for brief periods. You start by overflowing to nearby hospitals, you can't do that for covid though, because its global. So you try to drop non-urgent care, but they've already done that. You can't stop treating non-urgent care forever, it's only a temporary approach. So you're left with, well, reducing serious covid case rates. This can absolutely be done, by the way, with a combination of vaccination and varying masking policies as necessary. Because that's the only tool left after all of the others have been exhausted. > and they still haven't figured out a way to handle the ICU load? There is actually a really easy solution, it's just ethically terrible. You refuse (or triage last) unvaccinated covid patients. This solves most of the problems. It is however ethically unconscionable. > the problem is not covid patients, the problem is either a poorly planned system or news media sensationalism Yes, we all recognize that the global healthcare system is not able to handle a sustained 10-20% increase in demand. That doesn't make it "poorly planned" (are you willing to pay 20% extra in healthcare costs to cover the increased slack?)