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Avg annual US hospital occupancy is ~66%. This typically peaks in the winter, so Dec would be a bit higher than that. With reported COVID hospitalizations skyrocketing & setting new records daily, we'd expect overall occupancy to be very high right now. Right? Well...
...HHS data tells a much different story. US inpatient bed occupancy is currently at 70%, which is rather normal for this time of year.
Despite the large and rapidly growing number of COVID hospitalizations, overall occupancy remains almost unchanged in recent weeks.
The same thing is seen with ICU occupancy: huge COVID ICU patient growth, but no corresponding spike in overall ICU bed utilization - and ample capacity is still available.
This is probably explained mostly by the fact that a large % of COVID pts are hospitalized "with" C19, but not for it. Many are there for other causes & test positive, but have no/mild symptoms. Also, hospitals now count as admits many who're there just for brief observation.
Keep this in mind when you see stories about hospitals "getting crushed" or on the verge of collapse. Some facilities will reach capacity - as they typically do this time of year - but the data suggests that, in general, our healthcare system is OK. https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-capacity#download-data
