Okay, then why are hospital resources more finite than non-hospital resources that can scale?
> It's irresponsible to carry that much more capacity when you'll only need it once a century
But you need it for at least 2-3% of the century it seems, so the current model of "please don't overload our beds for 2-3 years" doesn't seem very sustainable either. It's almost like you want Amazon-style "elastic" resources that only kick in when you need them.
> Same deal with COVID. COVID is filling ICUs at a scale that is wasteful to keep on hand during normal operations.
So don't keep them on hand. Figure out a way to mobilize the resources when you need them.
> What does it take to make a site appropriate for an ICU ward?
For one thing, maybe making "a site appropriate for an ICU ward" is too stringent a requirement in times of crisis and overloading?
My solution: Setup circus tents in the parking lot reserved for unvaccinated covid patients where they can sleep on army cots with fewer ICU resources and where they die at higher rates than the normal ICU.
Bam, problem solved. Now the normal ICU is at normal capacity again and unvaccinated covid patients can still receive some limited form of care. If they die at higher rates, oh well, that's a consequence of not getting vaccinated and the direct result of their own choices. And it's better than letting vaccinated heart attack patients die because their unvaccinated comrades took up all the beds and it's also better than taking away everyone's freedom and forcing the vaccination upon everyone. Because now everyone is happy. The unvaccinated still have their freedom, the vaccinated still have their ICU beds.
I'm sure people more familiar with the problem domain could come up with something much better than circus tents in a parking lot. My point was that everyone seems to have accepted that hospitals are inflexible and that the only way to solve the problem is to flatten the curve indefinitely and I don't accept that. Sure, flatten the curve initially, but only until you figure out a better long term solution to dealing with loading spikes.
Also your solution would pretty much kill all those people. People are in an ICU ward for a reason, moving them to a parking lot tent is not the same. Now, they're not just battling COVID, but also everything else that's out there.
By your logic, putting a bullet in their heads would also solve the problem.
But the problem isn't "getting rid of COVID patients", it's "making sick people well".
> It's almost like you want "elastic" resources that only kick in when you need them.
No. I'm saying that doesn't exist. That it's folly to think that.
> So don't keep them on hand. Figure out a way to mobilize the resources when you need them.
This is you literally suggesting the solution is ""elastic" resources that only kick in when you need them". The thing I said doesn't exist and is an impossibly difficult problem.
Because resources are finite.
Not to mention, even if you have some extra to handle variable demand, exceptional circumstances are by their nature exceptional. It's irresponsible to carry that much more capacity when you'll only need it once a century.
Take for example the recent Hurricane Ida. There's still trash and debris to pick up. There's still damage to be fixed, houses to be rebuilt, etc. Insurance claims to process and pay out. Why?
Because there's going to be over 2 million cubic feet of vegetation to dispose of. Just in my parish. That's not considering the other parishes. Or other types of debris. There are trucks from several states and they've been working most days. And we still need to get rid of downed trees.
Because every house is going to have a claim. Every house is going to need some form of repair. Thousands of houses. All at once.
We aren't prepared to handle that sort of scale. And having the resources to handle that sort of scale is just going to languish when its not needed. It'll be waste.
Same deal with COVID. COVID is filling ICUs at a scale that is wasteful to keep on hand during normal operations.
And I'm sorry, saying they "need to innovate" is just the laziest criticism one can make. It exposes the fact that you have not thought of the problem at all beyond noticing the obvious lack of resources. Congratulations for noticing the obvious. How are they supposed to innovate? How do you know they haven't created temporary wards (they have where they could)? What does it take to make a site appropriate for an ICU ward? Etc, etc. There are problems that you don't even know exist because you don't know the problem domain. And that's ok. You're not expected to. But don't armchair quarterback the domain experts who have been working on this problem for the past year. It's not as smart as you think it is.