If they haven't banned hydroxychloroquine, Zithromax, and a zinc supplement, that should help keep early onset cases from becoming hospitalized.
Noted from the first link cases are up, but deaths are down. Likely these are younger people. In this state, there have been no deaths under 40 years old. None.
I'm not sure how that fits with your stats there, but if the cohort is younger, there may be less need for ICU beds from those patients. If the emergency is that bad, stop the elective surgeries for now and let the ICUs empty out for an anticipated wave of COVID patients.
Elective surgeries and procedures were shut down and just opened back up a couple of weeks ago -- not all procedures need hospitalizations.
The CEO of the health system here had asked over a month ago if he could prepare a near by arena should they need additional beds -- he was flat out declined. That arena was updated a couple of years ago and that was the excuse they gave him -- the arena was under remodeling. There is another smaller arena in the area but it is much, much older and hasn't been kept up over the years.
The only other option would be if one of the area hotels allowed the health system to turn a floor or two into hospital floors or perhaps use an area in our fairly new airport which would probably be the better place to utilize. I believe one area of the airport had been shutdown during the pandemic for lack of use.
Obviously it all boils down to money and manpower, of which the health system has little (I used to work and volunteer at the hospitals). I don't know if DeSantis can utilize fed $$ or how that works, but the situation is unsettling very unsettling right now.
