Hospitals are businesses. They don’t just create tons of empty ICU beds and then never use them.
If you are getting your information from for profit blogs and magazines then I’d suggest doing a quick analysis on their motivations. Do you think they have more motivation to get you to click on their products, or more motivation to give you valid (but boring) information?
Most of the states (all? I’ve looked at a lot of them) have some for of data dashboard that will give you a better overview of this. I’d highly suggest checking those instead of twitter/blogs/etc. It might not give the data that you are hoping for, but that’s kindof the behavior that is the problem (seeking out blogs and magazines that confirm your priors)
78% may have been the past utilization, however nowadays use of the ICU removing COVID patients is around 60%. So clearly there has been some level of denial of care. And even then we are close to the breaking point.
I think you're not making the point you think you're making with that data. 78% utilization is a lot when a very significant part of that is from an infectious disease known to spiral out of control easily.
From a 2014 analysis:
>Issues pertaining to the utility, interpretation, and reporting of ICU occupancy measures were identified and there were indications that optimal ICU occupancy rates were around 70-75%
First of all, that's not total ICU utilization, which is the metric that should interests you.
Illinois, the state you cherry-picked, has only 508 ICU beds remaining out of 3127. That's one doubling away from disaster.
Here's an example of people dying because they couldn't find an ICU bed : https://meaww.com/ray-demonia-cardiac-failure-dies-icu-beds-...
Right now the US is at the cusp of disaster with 78% nationwide ICU utilization. As we've seen some states are at functionally 100% utilization and turning away patients.