Health and Human Services hospital-level data only goes back to July 2020, and excludes hospitals reporting fewer than four hospitalizations in a given week. As of the week of Sept. 23, the country’s ICU capacity was about 79 percent full on average, and August saw more ICUs maxed out than in January, when the U.S. was counting more than 3,000 Covid deaths a day and before widespread Covid vaccinations. “It’s been tough not having the ICU capacity, because that’s really where our bottleneck has been over the month of July,” said Tena Knight, associate chief nursing officer for Southeast Health in Dothan, Alabama. “Even today, the number of ICU patients that we have, we’ve just experienced anywhere from maybe 10 to 15 patients that are needing ICU beds, sometimes upwards of 20 patients needing ICU beds, and there’s just no place to put them.” This summer’s Covid surge has only made things more difficult for packed hospitals. In Alabama, ICUs were maxed out in the latest surge, and...