7 January

From NSW Health yesterday. Three things: 1) those beds are required for everybody who is sick enough to require hospitalisation, and 2) ICU capacity in NSW is 1000 beds, but again that’s for all conditions. 300-500 Covid ICU patients breaks the system. 3) 6400 of the ordinary beds are already occupied, but not shown on the line graph. Over 300 of the ICU beds also occupied. Most importantly, it’s an example of political framing and spin. We argue over whether there are enough beds for the sick, and not over a much more basic question - why are we just allowing these people to become sick? What sort of society does that? It’s a first in our history.