BOISE, Idaho (AP) - In another ominous sign about the spread of the delta variant, Idaho public health leaders on Thursday expanded health care rationing statewide and individual hospital systems in Alaska and Montana have enacted similar crisis standards amid a spike in the number of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization.The decisions marked an escalation of the pandemic in several Western states struggling to convince skeptical people to get vaccinated.The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare made the announcement after St.
Luke's Health System, Idaho's largest hospital network, asked state health leaders to allow "crisis standards of care" because the increase in COVID-19 patients has exhausted the state's medical.