That is a concern, and I think we need to be much louder and angrier about why, 2 years into a pandemic, we still haven’t built up additional hospital capacity that we know we need.
There are also other treatments that we know greatly reduce the severity (and thus would decrease the need for hospital capacity) that haven’t been rolled out as widely and aggressively as the vaccine has.
> we need to be much louder and angrier about why, 2 years into a pandemic, we still haven’t built up additional hospital capacity that we know we need.
Hospital capacity limits are mostly about personnel and not equipment/space. Equipment and space are issues too, but temporary measures are possible.
Everywhere is having trouble hiring because employers don't want to pay enough wages for people to do the work. The same is true in the healthcare setting, but nursing requires a significant amount of training (AFAIK, 2 years for entry level nursing, I think more time needed for ICU nursing) and doctoring is even more. Hospitals (and healthcare providers in general) are not incentivized to retain enough staff to deal with spikes in demand. AFAIK, there hasn't been increased training, and probably a lot of training was delayed while in-person education wasn't an option. Healthcare workers were also a lot of the early victims. COVID mitigation measures probably reduce healthcare productivity too, requiring even more workers.
There are also other treatments that we know greatly reduce the severity (and thus would decrease the need for hospital capacity) that haven’t been rolled out as widely and aggressively as the vaccine has.