n the SoutheaSt Florida emergency
room where 62-year-old nurse Penny Blake
works, hospital administrators have locked
up gloves, cleaning supplies and masks to
keep them from disappearing. Twelve h un-
dred miles away, at Mount Sinai Hospital
in New York City, health care providers struggle
with a similar dilemma. Faced with too few N95
respirators— specialized masks that are supposed
to be worn for only up to eight hours—health care
workers have begun hoarding them. Some doctors are
spraying their masks with Lysol and keeping them in
their l ockers overnight. “Once you get one, the feel-
ing i s you keep it for as long as you can,” says Sinai’s
Dr. Michelle Lin.
In more than a dozen interviews with TIME, med-
ical professionals from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh
painted a p icture of scarce resources, growing anxi-
eties and frustrations with the government for failing
to a dequately p repare them for going to battle with
the coronavirus. Chief among their concerns was the
lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), includ-
ing masks, gowns and eye protection. With more than
53,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. so far,
a l ack o f t his gear means frontline health care work-
ers face a higher risk of exposure to the virus—which,
in turn, means they may accidentally expose other
patients, their own families and their colleagues pre-
cisely when hospitals can least afford to have critical
pers onnel on the sidelines.
“The biggest concern we have is that we will not
have enough personal protective equipment t o t ake
care of the number of patients that are coming in,”
says Blake. “And if we can’t protect ourselves, then
we’re not going to be able to be there for them.”
Dr. Matthew Baldwin, a critical-care physician
and p ulmonary specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital, says he expects the problem t o get worse.
“We’ve had an exponential increase in t he numberof p atients t hat h ave been hospitalized in the last 48
hours ,” h e t old TIME on March 21. “ I t hink t here’s
genuine concern now, that in the near future, we will
run out of pers onal protective equipment.”
On March 24, President Trump announced that
the Federal Emergency Management Agency would
distribute 8 million N95 masks to address nationwide
shortages. But that figure pales in comparison to the de-
mand. If this pandemic lasts a year, health care provid-
ers will require roughly 3.5 billion of the masks, accord-
ing to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Critics say the President could replenish t he U.S.
stockpile of PPE by using the Defense Production
Act, a 70-year-old law that allows him t o o rder com-
panies t o p rioritize government contracts and pro-
duce e quipment necessary t o p rotect national secu-
rity. But he has so far resisted. While he invoked the
law, Trump has largely avoided calling on specific
companies to participate, suggesting that doing so
would be tantamount to “nationalizing” industry.
Instead, he says, state leaders should source most
of t heir P PE o n t heir own. The government is not “a
shipping clerk,” he said on March 19. The Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, pub-
lished guidance on March 17 indicating that “as a
last resort,” health care providers “might use h ome-
made masks (e.g., bandana, scarf ) for care of patients
with COVID-19.”
Facing a n o nslaught o f potential new hospitaliza-
tions, Blake expresses disappointment in the govern-
ment for failing to prepare. “It is part of t he federal
government’s responsibility,” she says, “to ensure
that there are resources out there for protection of
their citizens.”In the absence of a coherent national response,
states and hospitals are scrambling to ration and
reuse what PPE they have. “Basically, I’ve been told to
wear that same N95 respirator mask for 24 hours,” anNATION
Life o n the front li nes for u nder-equipped health care workers
BY ABBY VESOULISI
‘I’M MENTA LLY
AND PHYSICALLY
EXHAUSTED’
CORONAVIRUS
WRESPONDERS.indd 32 3/25/20 4:31 PM