St. Mary’s Hospital, in Lewiston, which has Maine’s fourth-largest hospital capacity with 233 licensed beds, is allowing medical staff currently infected with the coronavirus to report to work.The hospital sent an email to its staff of 1,500 last Friday, Jan. 7, inviting such sick workers to do their jobs on a voluntary basis, hospital spokesman Steve Costello told WMTW.As of Monday, Jan. 10, two staff members who were COVID-19-positive had returned to work, Costello said."When you can't staff properly to make sure the people in the facility are safe that becomes a crisis staffing situation," Costello said.They are assigned to a coronavirus ward and are fully covered in personal protective equipment, Costello said.The hospital is averaging around 40 to 50 staff sickouts daily, Costello said, adding that the hospital had 30 in-patients treated for coronavirus on Monday, at least two-thirds of them unvaccinated, and one coronavirus patient in the intensive care unit.Hospital officials blamed the unvaccinated for putting them in this position."Vaccines have become political. It's not political vaccines work we see it every day. Over 80-percent, more in the 90-percent of the people who are in the hospital on a day in day out basis are unvaccinated," Costello said.On Monday, Maine topped 400 hospitalized coronavirus patients for the first time.St. Mary’s is owned by Covenant Health, which also owns St. Joseph’s hospital, in Bangor, which has the state’s eighth-largest hospital capacity with 112 beds. St. Joseph's has not instituted crisis staffing as of Tuesday. St. Mary’s is following the latest U.S. CDC guidance, issued Dec. 23, permitting COVID-19-positive health care workers to return to their jobs prior to completing the otherwise suggested five-day quarantine period and even while still experiencing mild symptoms.Costello said they are looking at the staffing situation on a day-to-day basis. He said Tuesday was not considered a crisis situation but that could change the next day.He added that Tuesday's announcement from Gov. Janet Mills that more Maine National Guard members were being activated to help hospitals will allow them to shift staff to where they are needed.Neither of Maine’s two largest hospital chains, MaineHealth and Northern Light Health, which together own two-thirds of the state’s hospitals and employ three-quarters of the state’s doctors and nurses in hospital and office settings, are engaged in the CDC-sanctioned crisis staffing.Northern Light spokeswoman Karen Cashman told WMTW on Tuesday, “We have not reached staffing levels that would need to be in place to consider crisis staffing. Important to note that we have not worked positive employees, and we hope we never need to consider doing so.”MaineHealth spokeswoman Caroline Cornish told WMTW on Friday, “MaineHealth does not allow COVID-19-positive staff to report to work.”