It will be almost a relief when they grow tired of this panic porn and return to drowning polar bears

Oooh, scary headline from Newspeak!

In days long ago, a reporter might be expected to question what he was writing, and, long before search engine, might have dug around to find out “what’s the normal , pre-COVID ICU occupancy rate?” Because surely it wouldn’t make sense for a hospital to have an entire ICU ward set up and sitting around empty, held in reserve in case a strange new pandemic showed up. Right? Wouldn’t you look?

So that’s what I did, using DuckDuck Go, and here’s a brief bit of what turned up (Spoiler alert: it’s between 65%-75%)

https://hospitalmedicaldirector.com › what-is-the-ideal-hospital-occupancy-rate

Lastly, occupancy rates can vary by location in the hospital. One of the admission-limiting locations is the ICU. If the ICU is at 100% occupancy and the rest of the hospitalist at 75% occupancy, the emergency department may still need to go on divert status for emergency squads and your system will be stressed if a single patient on the floor ...

Normal (pre-Covid) Hospital occupancy rates and ICU rates ...https://www.tigerdroppings.com › rant › o-t-lounge › normal-pre-covid-hospital-occupancy-rates-and-icu-rates › 97901513re: Normal (pre-Covid) Hospital occupancy rates and ICU rates Posted. by Obtuse1. on 8/22/21 at 5:31 pm to LSU316. quote: I think the whole hospital shortage deal has been the biggest COVID fallacy that the largest amount of people have eaten up hook, line, and sinker. It really depends on the hospital but in general, what you are saying is ...

Optimal occupancy in the ICU: a literature reviewhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › 24373914Issues pertaining to the utility, interpretation, and reporting of ICU occupancy measures were identified and there were indications that optimal ICU occupancy rates were around 70-75%. It was evident however that setting a uniform target figure for all ICUs would be problematic as there are a range of factors both at the unit and the hospital ...