My wife is the Director of Case Management for two hospitals in our area. During the Pandemic she was the interim CNE for our local hospital as well. So I can only speak to what I know about things locally and I know more than the average bear in that regard.
The hospitals in our region were NOT full before the pandemic. The ICUs were not full before the pandemic. And the rate of death that we’re seeing in our local hospitals was greater in the first two weeks of November 2020 than they typically see in an entire month.
As of right now the ICUs in our county are at 80% capacity. 50% of the census is COVID. This isn’t normal for this time of year even if you leave COVID out of the conversation. These are incontrovertible facts.
That said - I am NOT for lockdowns in any form.
those are incontrovertible facts
However, we experienced similar capacity problem in 2017-2018 H1N1 period
Sickness density goes up some years and goes way down other years.