Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain Man
Second slide of what? I arrived late to the conversation.
And I'll go on record that I'm pro-vaccine and am a cautious guy by nature, so we might have different viewpoints right now, but I'd just like to understand yours better.
So you're seeing that Massachusetts cut their ICU staff capacity (and beds) in late 2020, and the ICU number during the surge didn't move their bed numbers up.
My first theory when I hear that is that they might have ramped up capacity in anticipation of increased hospitalizations, and then ramped back down if they didn't occur. This would seem reasonable to me since it would reduce an expense. I could see this happening more than cutting elective surgery capacity, because my limited experience doing market research for hospitals tells me that they're very business-driven. They're not going to cut capacity if there's pent-up demand in an area.
Would you agree that my theory is plausible? If not, why not?
If so, then we come down to the question of why they didn't need their extra ICU capacity. That would argue that the covid cases weren't as severe as expected, or there weren't as many. (I guess another theory is that if it was more severe and people died quickly, but I don't think the facts back that up.)
Oh, or I guess another theory could be that they're better able to treat cases and get people out of the hospitals more quickly.
What seems most logical? Or is there something I'm missing?
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No, I think what you said makes sense, specifically:
experience doing market research for hospitals tells me that they're very business-driven. They're not going to cut capacity if there's pent-up demand in an area.
So ultimately, they already knew what they could handle based on Covid wave 1 and actually knew what they needed for season 2. Hospitals operate for profit so they don't want all this excess unused capacity.