More On ICU Bed/100k Population Figures

One thing I missed in Sunday's post about ICU beds in various medical systems is that the underlying Clinicians' Biosecurity News paper says that "there are about 46,500 medical ICU beds in the United States and perhaps an equal number of other ICU beds that could be used in a crisis" (emboldening mine). (The paper was published February 27, 2020, so still hot off the presses.) If we double that figure, it means the US has 93,000 ICU beds (assuming it is possible to adequately staff each one), or

93,000 ICU beds/331M population = 28 ICU beds/100k population

This is notably better than all European countries save Germany. However, they don't say how they arrived at that figure. A 2013 summary in Current Opinion In Critical Care claims the US has from 20.0-31.7 ICU beds/100k population, pointing to a 2008 summary in Critical Care Medicine:

 It seemed more likely to me that the industry itself might have better statistics, and indeed they do: the American Hospital Association says that the US has 97,776 ICU beds, which would mean

97,776 ICU beds/331M population = 29.5 ICU beds/100k population

While impressive, it seems reasonable to subtract out the neonatal ICU beds (22,860) and pediatric ICU beds (5,131). This gives us

69,785 ICU beds/331M population = 21.1 ICU beds/100k population

Overall, very good news, considering, but still inadequate to the demands if coronavirus needs spike.