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Marty Boryszak is the senior vice president for acute care at Catholic Health, which operates five hospitals and a number of outpatient and in-patient treatment centers in Erie County. Last month it settled a contract after 2,500 workers went on strike. He said hospitals in Buffalo were reaching a critical stage. “We’re knocking on 100 percent, and it’s not over,” he said.

The state estimates that 33,000 health care workers, or just 3 percent of New York’s overall health care work force, left their jobs because of the vaccine mandate, which does not allow for testing in lieu of vaccination or religious exemptions. But because the sector as a whole was already short staffed, the additional job losses have hit hard. Ms. Hochul is being cautious about imposing additional mandates in other areas in light of the experience, she said Thursday at a news conference.

At F.F. Thompson Hospital, a rural hospital on the shores of Lake Canandaigua in the Finger Lakes, 15 people stayed overnight in the emergency room one night this week because there were no regular beds available, said Michael Stapleton, the hospital’s chief executive officer. As of earlier this week, less than one-quarter of the hospital’s 115 patients had Covid, but it was enough to overstress an already taxed facility.

For weeks, the hospital had been trying to discharge 17 stable patients to nursing homes, but could not find any space. One patient was recently transported by ambulance 300 miles to a nursing home bed in New York City, Mr. Stapleton said, the closest facility that had an opening. The patient, who had several chronic conditions, had been at the hospital for three months.

About 150 staff members left rather than comply with the state’s vaccine mandate, including people with decades of institutional knowledge, Mr. Stapleton said. Things got so bad that the week before Thanksgiving, the hospital diverted ambulances for two days to other hospitals just to relieve some of the pressure.