[toast0]

The problem with this plan is that it's very hard to do safely. Let's say I don't care about deaths from COVID-19 that were untreatable; I still care about excess deaths tyat were treatable, but don't get treated because hospitals are overwelmed by patients or overwelmed because medical staff is sick.

To avoid that, you basically have to limit the number of beds COVID patients are using and modulate the infection rate to keep the beds in use close to the limit without going over. Of course, modulating the rate is difficult, because people's behavior is hard to modulate. Also the demand for new beds shows up about 2 weeks after infection, so you have to modulate today based on what your bed capacity looks like then.

[matz1]

Hospital are frequently overwhelmed in the past, nothing new, at least at current situation is no more overwhelmed than what has frequently happen in the past.

[__blockcipher__]

And worth noting that there is not a whole lot hospitals can do anyway. The overwhelming majority have COVID-19 that is so mild that they never would go to a hospital. Of those that have more serious symptoms, some will be benefit from being given oxygen. There are very few people who warrant invasive ventilation, and those that do have very bad odds anyway.

The meme around hospital overrun is just that, a meme. Especially given everywhere having at least a small percentage of positive serology tests. I doubt anywhere in the US would get truly overrun with uninhibited spread at this point.