The reason people are even mentioning ICU beds are because they're trying to shift the vaccination argument from "do it for yourself, if you want to" to "you have to do it for others".
If we had enough ICU beds, there would be NO argument to force people to get vaccinated, just like there is no argument to force people to not smoke or not be fat.
If we had enough ICU beds there would still be an argument because it will cause a bunch of people to die. If you don't care about that then that's your problem, but personally I'd like those old people to stick around for a bit longer, and keep in mind that one day you too will be old.
The arguments for vaccination go a lot further than just a lack of ICU beds.
Right, maybe we should stick them on an island somewhere so they don't have contact with the rest of society then. Really, the degree of selfishness here is incredible. Don't you have parents or grandparents? Would you want them to be isolated from you and the rest of your family, their friends and neighbors for the foreseeable future just so you can pretend that there is no problem?
So, we have a climate crisis, uncontrolled health care and college costs, decades of pointless war, mass incarceration, and a variety of other crises that cause a lot of death and suffering.
Yet isn't it strange that the one crisis we have chosen to pull out all the societal stops for, to radically reorient all of society and put it in stasis for, is COVID-19. Odd coincidence that most of the first list affects young people, COVID-19 primarily affects old people, and the political leadership of the developed world happens to be comprised of old people.
And the subset of old people responsible for handling the pandemic hasn't even managed to do that properly. This is the same category of people who hollowed out unions, induced globalization, and generally kicked out the ladder beneath them in a variety of ways.
I do care about my parents/grandparents, I've been vaccinated, and I'd wear a mask around an old person. That's the absolute maximum I'm willing to do voluntarily and feel fine about that. I'd even venture to suggest that if someone has a problem and demands that all of society radically realign itself to fix/prevent it in a way that's disproportionate to society's other needs, it's not society that's being selfish.
> To be frank, I'm in favour of mass cryogenics. Build mausoleums under mountains and fill them with the frozen heads of the dead, to be revived later.
Science fiction has no place in policy determination.
The reason people are even mentioning ICU beds are because they're trying to shift the vaccination argument from "do it for yourself, if you want to" to "you have to do it for others".
If we had enough ICU beds, there would be NO argument to force people to get vaccinated, just like there is no argument to force people to not smoke or not be fat.