I think the more likely scenario is that hospitals are overrun because nurses and doctors are getting covid and need to be isolated, not because they are admitting people who don't need to be admitted.
Jingle said that is what is happening in Canada, I know it's happening here in Argentina as well and I think I read something similar is happening in the UK.
We got a note from the Superintendent of Schools from our old town (shitty school system; I've written about it before) and they are "hour to hour" on COVID and school. I'm not sure what that means - they're just going to send kids home at random? - but the emphasis was less on STUDENTS getting it than on not having available staff. He didn't go into details as to whether that meant staff WITH COVID or staff WITHOUT vaccines, but the point is, this isn't just about the students, or, by corollary, the patients in the hospitals. It's as much about who is going to take care of them.
Honestly, that seems like a bigger problem to me, since if it's JUST about bed space, you can bully that, right? Put beds in the hall. Make-shift beds out of tables. Etc. But if there's no one to treat, the next person that comes in with a heart attack, or a snake bite, or a car accident, they might as well just stay home, because the level of medical expertise will be the same (i.e. NONE) if there isn't a doctor or nurse present.
First off, best wishes to your family... I know this is tough. We are also currently in a similar situation with our son, but he seems to be making it through fine.
As far as I understand it, almost any time "beds" have been mentioned in one of these situations, what has been meant is really staffing, not beds. So beds are a bit of a misnomer the draws everyone's attention to those photos of people pouring into hospital hallways in India and Italy. That seems unlikely to happen in the US, at least most places, even at the current rate of spread.
I'm not sure why people say "beds" because it seems to oversimplify the problem in a way that is on the surface actually very alarming, but perhaps less alarming than the real problem of there simply not being enough highly certified people necessary to take care of how many people are getting sick.
By the way... also as far as I understand it, this is a problem with the healthcare system that didn't begin with COVID, it's just being exasperated by it. Hospitals, as a rule, are understaffed and nurses overworked, even with the appalling amount of money thrown at healthcare in this country. Something has to give. No one wants to see the system completely collapse because that means more people will die. The silver lining, I suppose, is that it might just take that for it to actually get fixed.