ICU is an area in a hospital with more beds. If more beds are needed, more patients are put in ICU rooms or other ad hoc, overflow areas. It doesn’t mean everyone in ICU is fighting for their lives on a ventilator.
Hospitals are busy now, for reasons I don’t claim to know entirely but it’s also seasonal and hospitals are designed to be perpetually busy because they’re understaffed. The minute they’re not busy, people get sent home.
However hospitals were not busy during February-May 2020 during the “pandemic,” in fact they were largely ghost towns.
Source: full-time hospital employee
How do we know hospitals are busy? I went for a blood test a couple weeks ago, and the hospital didn’t look busy. Major hospital in a major city
The hospital system in my area that I’m familiar with is busy. There are a lot of people in the ERs and most hospital admissions are through the ER. Of course, hospitals are usually busy during certain times of the year.
Of course not every hospital is busy during the whole pandemic. And hospitalizations are delayed. I wouldn't expect hospitals in America to have been busy in February or March 2020. But I think the hospitals in New York were probably busy in April and May 2020. Now the hospitals in New York are probably not very busy but I'm sure there are very busy hospitals in Florida.
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