NEW: With Colorado COVID cases and hospitalizations rising, Gov. Polis signed a new health order late Sunday night that allows hospitals to refuse some patients.
There are nearly 1,200 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Colorado — the most since December 2020.
Nearly 80 percent of those hospitalized with coronavirus are unvaccinated, and almost 40 percent of hospitals expect to be short staffed during the next week.
“I am very concerned that we are going to exceed capacity and what dictates capacity is going to be the number of safely staffed beds,” said Dr. Anuj Mehta, a pulmonologist with National Jewish Health and Denver Health.
“It's no longer a question of ventilators. It's a question of safely staffed beds. If you typically have one nurse for two ICU beds, and now you're asking that one nurse to care for four ICU patients, that's not safe anymore.”
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