Dr. Eric France, Colorado’s chief medical officer, announced the state was reactivating Crisis Standards of Care for Emergency Medical Services amid a rapid surge in COVID-19 cases.

“There has been a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases, largely due to the highly contagious Omicron variant,” France wrote in his order. “Furthermore, these shortages of professional staffing, combined with the case surge, necessitate efforts to respond to and mitigate the effects of the pandemic, prevent further spread, preserve our health care and emergency medical services resources, as well as provide the needed flexibility to address the consequences of the pandemic.”

France said in a statement that people should still call 911 if they need emergency care, and the standards are intended to ensure that those who need immediate medical attention can get it.

How the standards play out will depend on each community’s resources. But they state that medical workers should “transport only the most severe cases.” The standards outline a set of criteria for when not to transport a patient. Those include someone who is under 60 years of age, doesn’t have a high-risk medical history, is capable of making medical decisions, isn’t short of breath and meets certain vital sign targets.

The standards also include a suggested script for emergency medical service workers to use with patients not recommended for transport. The script directs workers to tell patients that taking them to an emergency department “likely outweighs the benefits,” and to instead offer home care recommendations.

The standards also describe stark courses of action for some scenarios, including that “patients in continuous cardiac arrest WILL NOT BE TRANSPORTED.”

“Patients in cardiac arrest with an initial rhythm of ventricular fibrillation should have limited efforts at resuscitation including CPR, electrical defibrillation and ACLS drugs,” reads the standards.

This is the second time Colorado has enacted crisis standards for emergency services. The first was early in the pandemic in April 2020.

Currently, Colorado has not activated crisis standards for hospitals. But in November, officials activated crisis standards around staffing for health care systems.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment did not respond to an email Friday evening.