Remember not very long ago when millions of people were insisting that any rise in hospital capacity was a national emergency, and that we all had to stay home indefinitely – wrecking our economy and ruining our way of life – in order to prevent hospitalizations?
Weird you're not hearing any of that now, right?
Hospitals are more full than they've been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a CNN analysis of data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. But as respiratory virus season surges across the US, it's much more than Covid that's filling beds this year.
More than 80% of hospital beds are in use nationwide, jumping 8 percentage points in the past two weeks.
There's no persistent demands to shutter our entire economy, shut down schools, and confine people in their home for months and months.
Isn't that weird?
Oh wait, here's why:
Hospitals have been more than 70% full for the vast majority of that time. But they've been 80% full at only one other point: in January, during the height of the Omicron surge in the US. Back in January, about a quarter of hospital beds were in use for Covid-19 patients. But now, only about 6% of beds are in use for Covid-19 patients, according to the HHS data.
