The total number of places available in a given country in ICU's is (assuming a perfect world) the exact needed amount for "ordinary" cases + some slack, let's say 10%.
So you cannot count the total number of available beds as if they were free, as 90% (or change the percentage according to the specific country) are always, constantly, in use for patients affected by other - totally unrelated to Covid-19 - issues.
Part of these "ordinary" cases can be reduced (as an example by delaying a number of not-really-urgent surgery interventions) but this is also not without consequences.
Good call, I was treating total beds as free beds when in fact the number of free beds is somewhere between zero and 10% of that. It won't take much at all to overwhelm the available ICU resources.
The total number of places available in a given country in ICU's is (assuming a perfect world) the exact needed amount for "ordinary" cases + some slack, let's say 10%.
So you cannot count the total number of available beds as if they were free, as 90% (or change the percentage according to the specific country) are always, constantly, in use for patients affected by other - totally unrelated to Covid-19 - issues.
Part of these "ordinary" cases can be reduced (as an example by delaying a number of not-really-urgent surgery interventions) but this is also not without consequences.