It’s not. The choke point is when you overcome the hospital or it starts reaching capacity. Currently, area hospitals here are about 80-85% full. That’s not a common number for this early into winter. That’s a number in January-February during the height of flu season.
It’s not just ICU beds, because every hospital has some people in it who are COVID but haven’t reached the need for ICU intervention, or are bad enough to need care but not need ICU level care.
When you are overcoming local resources and there is no more room when it becomes a problem. There is a trickle-down effect from the start of illness, depending upon the severity of the individual. The more that have moderate to major symptoms, the more strain that is applied to the local healthcare system both pre-hospital (EMS), hospital, and post-hospital. This isn’t a one shoe fits all type of scenario. It can be drastically different across different geographic and socioeconomic areas.