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Colorado activated its crisis standards of care plan on Tuesday to help hospitals determine how to allocate limited staff as emergency shortages and COVID-19 admissions rock health systems across the state. The state implemented the crisis standards specifically to allow hospitals to prioritize certain health workers for care, as almost 40 percent of hospitals expect shortages within the next week, according to state data. (Coleman, 11/10)

Colorado has reactivated crisis guidelines for staffing at healthcare systems across the state as COVID-19 hospitalizations and infections continue to rise, and state health officials said Tuesday that anyone 18 and older qualifies for a booster shot. "Crisis standards of care" allow hospitals to maximize the care they can provide in their communities with the staff they have available. (11/10)

At the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Tom Gonzales, director of public health in Colorado’s sixth-largest county, made a decision in mid-October that felt like a dismaying retreat in the battle against the coronavirus. He reinstated an indoor mask mandate. It was not a popular move, but Gonzales felt he had no choice. Hospitals in Larimer County, which stretches eastward from the Continental Divide to the high plains and encompasses Fort Collins, were overwhelmed with covid-19 patients. The uptick began slowly in August, plateaued for a while — and then exploded unexpectedly once the leaves began to turn. (Johnson, Achenbach and Dupree, 11/10)

Hospitals in northwestern New Mexico were grappling Wednesday with a surge in coronavirus cases that has left only a handful of intensive care beds available and led to a rationing of care. State health officials said New Mexico’s health care system overall remains heavily burdened with high rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations. Hospitals across the state had just eight intensive care beds available Wednesday, making it more difficult to attend to health emergencies such as heart attacks, said David Scrase, the state’s top health official. (Lee, 11/11)

California has begun positioning equipment and locking in contracts with temporary health care workers in preparation for another possible winter surge of coronavirus cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. The most populous state in the country still is doing comparatively well with the rest of the U.S. in terms of cases and hospitalizations. But Newsom warned Californians should prepare for another harsh pandemic winter even though the state is among the nation’s leaders with about 74% of eligible people with at least one dose of the vaccine. (Dazio and Thompson, 11/11)

COVID-19 is likely to become a long-term issue for Americans to "learn to live with," according to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. "As we look to the future, I think what is likely to happen is that there will be coronavirus around for some period of time. But I do think we can knock it down in terms of its severity, and second, we can reduce the number of cases," Murthy told "CBS Mornings." (Novak, 11/10)

The World Health Organization reported Wednesday that coronavirus deaths rose by 10% in Europe in the past week, making it the only world region where both COVID-19 cases and deaths are steadily increasing. It was the sixth consecutive week that the virus has risen across the continent. In its weekly report on the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said there were about 3.1 million new cases globally, about a 1% increase from the previous week. Nearly two-thirds of the coronavirus infections - 1.9 million - were in Europe, where cases rose by 7%. The countries with the highest numbers of new cases worldwide were the United States, Russia, Britain, Turkey and Germany. The number of weekly COVID-19 deaths fell by about 4% worldwide and declined in every region except Europe. (11/10)