[jrnichols]

> Because you cannot. Even if you have the space and the materials, you do not have the qualified and experienced personel to run it.

Oh yes you do. Absolutely. They're called traveler nurses and there are literally thousands of them out there. Agencies like Krucial Staffing have been hiring hundreds of them at a time and sending them to places like El Paso. Which now has a declining ICU admission rate.

If they said "We need 500 ICU nurses to be in California within 48 hours" they would have them.

Whether or not the big union in California would let this happen, however, is another story in itself.

But yes, you absolutely can get people to staff it.

[omgwtfbyobbq]

Even if we have enough nurses, we also need more doctors, respiratory therapists, and so on...

At some point in a wave, the number of ICU beds used across the US would be greater than the number of professionals available even if they moved to other hot spots when they could. It's a good idea to stay as far away from that point as we can, especially if we're unsure about the rate of spread in the winter/flu season.