Knee-jerk reaction to question number 1 is that the floors and rooms that were converted and reserved for Kung-flu patients during the peak are back to being used for other patients, putting some limits on the beds available.
This is basically true, in the sense that rooms that were suitable were adapted for use with Covid patients. The room I was in was a two-bed room with one bed removed and doors adapted for a decent seal. After the peak in early January and precipitous drop new cases, many rooms - actually whole floor sections - reverted to ordinary use.
Something else you don't hear about since 1/20/21, testing. Remember all the crying about testing the DUmmies were doing? Where did all that rage go?
KC
Guess what else Worldometers tracks,
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries . They track tests per million population. The US compared to several European Countries:
US - 1.622 million
France - 1.633 million
UK - 3.633 million
Spain - 1.222 million
Italy - 1.296 million
And several countries with less robust healthcare systems:
India - 340.5 thousand
Brazil - 257 thousand
Turkey - 807.5 thousand
South Africa - 250 thousand
Thailand - 116 thousand
Egypt - 29.4 thousand
So, two points are obvious from that data:
1. Among large countries with robust healthcare systems, the US is doing just fine; there is no lack of testing. When, at the peak of the winter surge, I got tested (and was positive), there were two days between phoning to set up an appointment and doing the test. IOW, when testing was probably at or near a peak, tests were easily available.
2. Compared to many countries in the world, the US is as much as 1 or 2 magnitudes greater in number of tests per million population. That means that many countries' daily new cases and daily deaths charts on Worldometers are probably significantly under-stated, possibly by an order of magnitude or two. Translated into
DUmmie-Speak,
the US and Western EuroLand are selfishly hogging all the Covid tests!
