The US has fewer hospital beds per 1,000 people compared to places like Japan, South Korea, and Italy that have also been hit hard by the virus.
Not all beds are necessarily created equal. Right now, hospitals need special rooms that can isolate people with contagious diseases like the coronavirus, known as negative pressure rooms. And intensive care unit rooms, where doctors provide advanced life-saving care, are also in demand amid the pandemic.
"There's beds, and then there's ICU beds in a negative pressure room," said Soumi Saha, a senior director of advocacy at Premier, which works with hospitals around the US.
To increase capacity, she said, EvergreenHealth in Kirkland, Washington, an early epicenter of the US COVID-19 outbreak, put 58 patients in 15 negative pressure rooms that typically hold one patient each. Premier is set to survey the hospitals it works with to get a sense of how much added ICU capacity each is able to make in light of the outbreak beyond their normal capacities.
Elsewhere, hospitals are starting to cancel elective procedures.
To Jenna Mandel-Ricci, the vice president of legal and regulatory affairs for the Greater New York Hospital Association, it's a sign that hospitals aren't doing business as usual any more.
"It's the equivalent of me being like, 'In this response I can't do any other work except this" Mandel-Ricci told Business Insider.
Dr. Craig Coopersmith, interim director of the Emory Critical Care Center, oversees 300 ICU beds. He told Business Insider in March that many ICUs around the country are full on any given day.
While hospitals can cancel surgeries and take other measures to free up space, a spreading coronavirus outbreak would stretch them to their limits, he said.