My county has less than 15% ICU bed availability.

And what was the average availability for the previous 5 years?

It was hovering around 30-40% 2 months ago, and was around 56% in May. Unfortunately historical data is hard to find since most gov/hospital websites only seem to show covid related data.

But that's because the pandemic actually emptied out most hospitals. ICUs are not built for Easter Sunday. Here's an article with pre-pandemic numbers: "Although average ICU occupancy was only 68% in 2005, some hospitals, especially academic medical centers, regularly face occupancy levels exceeding 90% (Wunsch et al. 2013), often requiring the rationing of scarce critical care beds."

http://www.elisalong.com/uploads/1/0/9/7/109701801/long_math...

Sounds like ICU capacity is roughly appropriate for normal-times peak demand to me.

The average occupancy you quote is consistent with the “2 months ago” capacity quoted by GP.

The pandemic emptied hospitals and put many other kinds of therapies, surgeries etc. on delay, because it's dangerous. Hence the need to get vaccinated so we can resume.