[djsumdog]

> our healthcare system would rapidly collapse

This was the entire "15 days to slow the spread" narrative. It's been 8 months. None of our hospitals collapses or were overwhelmed, except in states like Michigan and NYC where governors send the infected back to elder care facilities.

Most hospitals in the US never even got close to peak usages. Many people died because they were afraid to go to the hospitals or couldn't get surgeries they were scheduled for.

[matthewdgreen]

> Most hospitals in the US never even got close to peak usages.

Texas ICUs came very close to peak usage, and Florida was also running near capacity in many ICUs. Hospitals like TMC managed by making "surge" ICU beds and bringing in resources from out of state. We don't know the impact of these surges on quality of care, but Texas was losing a 7-day average of 325 lives per day at its peak in August. These happen to be the states with a combination of high population density cities and some of the fewest COVID countermeasures; more rural states and states with stronger countermeasures didn't approach capacity.

[collyw]

https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie...

[matthewdgreen]

The article you link doesn't say anything about ICU capacity surging in a manner that compares with COVID this year. It talks mostly about tents outside of emergency rooms. COVID deaths this year are already 173% of the deaths from the 2017-18 flu season, and most sources indicate that these numbers actually underestimate the real toll.