[geofft]

True, but while the behavior (and rate of spread) is from the population as a whole, the impact is felt by individuals. Someone who's staying home except to get essentials once a month is at significantly increased risk when they visit stores if there are more carriers - and of course someone who's staying home and develops a medical emergency completely unrelated to covid won't have an ICU bed either.

[User23]

Or, alternately, hospital administration is doing an excellent job of optimizing for revenue by oversubscribing their biggest profit center.

SoCal hospitals have been infamous for sending any baby they can to the NICU for any reason so long as the parents have insurance, because regular L&D is a cost center. Is adult ICU really that different?