A nationwide shortage of nurses and health care workers may soon worsen as thousands of medical staff face losing their jobs by refusing to obey new COVID-19 vaccine mandates. “It will be really terrible. We’re already understaffed,” said one veteran registered nurse who works at a health care facility north of Seattle. She said she will lose her job after her employer’s Aug. 31 mandated vaccine goes into effect unless she complies with the requirement. She estimates that as many as 400—20 percent—of the health center’s 2,500 employees refuse to take the vaccine. That number will likely shrink due to the financial hardship of job loss, she said, though “even losing 5 percent would be devastating to the community,” she told The Epoch Times. The nurse, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said her only solution is if her employer grants her a religious exemption, which appears unlikely at this …