did you consider checking the facts before buying into such hysterical claims?

this is LA department of health services hospital census. it's essentially identical to the levels from last year.

the media have had a severe tendency to overstate these issues. https://twitter.com/TheTweetOfJohn/status/1343312471675695105

as you can see, visits to emergency departments have been quite stable for 4 months.

and ICU bed availability has been flat for the whole month of december.

keep in mind that 90-100% ICU capacity is normal this time of year and that all ICU's must be able to flex to 120% (by federal law) and most can hit 150%.

and if you will not take my word for it, just ask the CEO's of the hospitals in texas everyone was so breathless about this summer.

they were not worried. and they were correct. https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1276583838567653376?s=20

hospital census in LA seems to be about 3000 patients below where it was in july.

this seems to imply a drop in staffed beds which, contrary to the narrative is not from "exhaustion" but rather from people being laid off or staying home because kids are not in school.

there are also a number companies that handle flex staffing for hospitals in surge areas.

all seem to be reporting that business is deader than disco.

this seems dissonant with the idea that there are just no staff available to man beds especially with so much of the US <70%.

capacity in CA as a whole is quite high, census is quite low for this time of year, not high.

76% of beds full. 85% ICU.

it's not like LA is not connected to things.

so perhaps we should take a breath on this relentless hospital fear porn.

they do this in every state when their seasonality comes and no one has been overwhelmed yet. not one state. https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1335956092833161218?s=20

not even perennial basket case NYC was overwhelmed.

javits was never used. neither was the hospital ship.

they likely got hit harder by this flu in 2018.

perspective matters.

let's keep some. https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/

links to data here for those who want them:

http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/dhs/1070348_DHSCOVID-19Dashboard.pdf https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-capacity#hospital-occupancy