> ... and that's ignoring that we were worried about running out of hospital capacity.
Anyways--
> 10% less hospital stay, means 10% more patients able to get help.
This isn't true. It's only true at steady state, but if there's an exponential process you get a smaller benefit. (E.g. take the ridiculous case that 100% of patients show up on one day-- obviously a shorter stay doesn't improve the number you treat in that case).
It's just worth noting that you get significantly less than a 1/.9 benefit in capacity when you shorten hospitalization times by 10%. It's a benefit, but it's only this ideal value when things are perfectly steady state. So sorry for the pedantry, but "10% less hospital stay, means 10% more patients able to get help."--- it's not the predicted 11% or even 10%.
In case of COVID, it's not just a cost issue, but also clearing the bed as soon as possible, to put a new patient in.
10% less hospital stay, means 10% more patients able to get help.