I suspect the limiting factor is personnel, not beds (i.e. trained staff to manage covid patients), which can't be increased on short notice. But still -- we have incompetent state & federal leadership that basically knew what would happen yet still didn't do enough to prepare.

> Instead hospitals were laying off people in the summer.

Yup. One of the dark ironies of this whole mess has been that hospitals have been letting go of staff because they had to suspend (very profitable) elective surgeries to treat (not so profitable) covid patients. Think hip surgeries being postponed and bleeding hospitals dry as a result.