Hospitalizations with Covid are probably 4X higher now, because Omicron is more transmissible, everyone in the hospital with a broken leg gets Covid.
“On supplemental O2 / ventilator” should be THE ONLY Hospital metric reported.
If they aren’t reporting this, they are lying to you.
To clarify, I’m not looking at COVID hospitalizations so much as total hospitalizations. Here locally they are high but still manageable. Oklahoma City seems to have gone beyond that, according to the hospitals themselves.
That assumes all COVID complications are caused by low O2, which is not the case.
I do agree “with COVID” is an improper metric.
I believe that if looking at “COVID hospitalizations”, the metric should be “COVID as a significant contributing factor to admission”. VERY often, and this has not really changed, admissions are due to combinations of factors. I saw it repeatedly with both my Mom and my Dad.
Regardless, the bottom line is whether or not a hospital has proper care capacity for additional incoming patients, and if not, is such care nearby.