[M T]

I am hearing stories out of Texas with similar inability to treat or transfer leading to death. 

Very tragic.

Texas is a large state;  I mostly only track Houston.   Texas Medical Center (a number of hospitals in Houston) is reporting 100% of phase 1 ICU capacity filled = 83% of phase 2 ICU capacity = 64% of phase 3 ICU capacity.  359 COVID in ICU of 1412 in ICU.

Your posts are usually very enlightening and very on point, but in this case, I'm not sure what the point of your post was.  I'll assume I'm just missing the intent and followup by adding that the story that I heard was from North Texas. (sorry, don't have the exact location).  Regardless where it's from, assuming it's true (which I would put confidence at > seemingly true, but unverified twitter post, and < personal experience) it's bad out there. =(

Sorry that I wasn't clear.

I couldn't tell where in Texas you were referring.  (Both Texas & California are big places.  Saying it is snowing in Texas/California would not be contradictory to saying it is a sunny & warm in Texas/California.)  In the past, others & I have given updates on Houston when it was so bad in June/July.  When I saw your post, I quickly went to the Houston mega-medical center site to see whether they had a bad surge when I wasn't looking.  I posted their current info as a data point.

I would imagine that the smaller towns would be sending overflow to the big medical centers in HOU, DFW, San Antonio.  North & West Texas may be too far to transport except by air.  But the big medical centers will eventually fill, so those are important places to watch.  North Texas probably triages in Amarillo.

Judging from this news article out of Austin, Texas has restrictions that trigger on <15% hospital (not just ICU) beds available.  At first glance, such a policy seems reasonable, but there is a lot of wiggle room in what that full capacity means.  (It mentions 8 regions under restrictions: Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene, El Paso, Dallas-Fort Worth, Midland-Odessa, Waco and Laredo.  A hospital in Abilene is mentioned that is out of ICU beds.)  See that news article for reported ICU availability in Texas.

The Univ. of Minnesota tracks bed usage by COVID patients, but does not attempt to give bed availability.   Of course, it is subject to Garbage In, Garbage Out...  San Mateo county numbers at the state level presumably are garbage.  This site indicates that San Mateo county has 73% of its ICU beds occupied by COVID patients.  The SMC site indicates 27 out of 68 occupied ICU beds are COVID, with 6 empty beds.

[M T]

I am hearing stories out of Texas with similar inability to treat or transfer leading to death. 

Very tragic.

Texas is a large state;  I mostly only track Houston.   Texas Medical Center (a number of hospitals in Houston) is reporting 100% of phase 1 ICU capacity filled = 83% of phase 2 ICU capacity = 64% of phase 3 ICU capacity.  359 COVID in ICU of 1412 in ICU.

Your posts are usually very enlightening and very on point, but in this case, I'm not sure what the point of your post was.  I'll assume I'm just missing the intent and followup by adding that the story that I heard was from North Texas. (sorry, don't have the exact location).  Regardless where it's from, assuming it's true (which I would put confidence at > seemingly true, but unverified twitter post, and < personal experience) it's bad out there. =(

Sorry that I wasn't clear.

I couldn't tell where in Texas you were referring.  (Both Texas & California are big places.  Saying it is snowing in Texas/California would not be contradictory to saying it is a sunny & warm in Texas/California.)  In the past, others & I have given updates on Houston when it was so bad in June/July.  When I saw your post, I quickly went to the Houston mega-medical center site to see whether they had a bad surge when I wasn't looking.  I posted their current info as a data point.

I would imagine that the smaller towns would be sending overflow to the big medical centers in HOU, DFW, San Antonio.  North & West Texas may be too far to transport except by air.  But the big medical centers will eventually fill, so those are important places to watch.  North Texas probably triages in Amarillo.

Judging from this news article out of Austin, Texas has restrictions that trigger on <15% hospital (not just ICU) beds available.  At first glance, such a policy seems reasonable, but there is a lot of wiggle room in what that full capacity means.  (It mentions 8 regions under restrictions: Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene, El Paso, Dallas-Fort Worth, Midland-Odessa, Waco and Laredo.  A hospital in Abilene is mentioned that is out of ICU beds.)  See that news article for reported ICU availability in Texas.

The Univ. of Minnesota tracks bed usage by COVID patients, but does not attempt to give bed availability.   Of course, it is subject to Garbage In, Garbage Out...  San Mateo county numbers at the state level presumably are garbage.  This site indicates that San Mateo county has 73% of its ICU beds occupied by COVID patients.  The SMC site indicates 27 out of 68 occupied ICU beds are COVID, with 6 empty beds.