re: There have been 830 total Omicron cases in the United States

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Because the surges have all been so exaggerated beyond belief. There have been tent hospitals and ship hospitals and church hospitals and dome hospitals that were set up over the past 2 years and largely gone unused.

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I don't know about nationwide, but we used 2 out of the three tent wards set up during the delta surge back in the summer and used one tent for almost a year last year.

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Meanwhile there is actual floor space going unused in many hospitals at the same time. It has largely been a manpower shortage, not a bed shortage.

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Not the case at my hospital. During the delta surge we had a full hospital and still needed extra space. We also had a manpower shortage which kept us from being able to utilize the third tent ward fully and eventually made us close it early. However, manpower issues did not affect the number of patients in physical hospital rooms.

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The times of the “surges” have been some of the very slowest times for many health care providers, with few patients and little to do, because of the overreaction and shutting down of health care. The shut downs have harmed patients and harmed the resilience of the health care system.

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1. Just because OLOL had problems does not mean it is a nationwide problem.

2. Next weekend is Christmas and that is going to cause an increase in cases of covid as well as the flu and common colds all of which can cause people with chronic conditions like CHF, ESRD, uncontrolled diabetes, etc to get sick and need hospitalization. So we are predicting a surge in admissions for a variety of health conditions after Christmas. It turns out that it is suppose to rain or snow every day here the week after Christmas. Not the best conditions to be putting up tents and moving very expensive and specialized healthcare electronics in. However, this week is suppose to be relatively pretty weather. So we are going ahead and putting up the tents in case we need them while the weather is nice. That way we have the ventilators and other equipment as well as the extra bedspace ready if we need it. That way we can delay or avoid having to stop elective procedures and other stuff that we have had to do in the past. If we do not need them, then the only thing we lost was parking space. That is called being proactive and increasing the resiliency of our healthcare system.