How do hospitals “increase bed capacity by 25%”?

Question

Here in New York, Gov. Cuomo is ordering hospitals to increase “managed bed capacity” by 25-50%. I’m wondering how exactly.

Some guesses:

Cancel elective surgery and turn all those recovery room beds into “managed beds”.

Assign nurses to ER beds and make people stay in the ER.

***edit: I was trying to make a joke with this one. Come to find out I’m not funny***
Tell women to stop having babies (not so sure about this one)
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Build actual new capacity in a tent outside in the parking lot.

We are creeping up in some critical capacity thresholds and it seems like a simple solution to just say “increase capacity”. How can we do it in on such short notice?

Thanks!

In: Other

Answer 1

They all sound good except the babies one. Those who will be giving birth the next few months have been pregnant. Those who will be giving birth in December got pregnant around the beginning of the pandemic. Telling people to stop procreating in general has never/will never work 🤷🏼‍♀️