As infection from the coronavirus spreads — and with it, fear — hospitals are facing extraordinary tension between health care providers and administrators. The tension comes against the backdrop of sickness and death for health care professionals, in China, Italy and Spain, and now more than 200 health care workers sick in New York.

Mostly, staff and administrators are fighting over masks, whether they should be worn outside of treatment rooms, and which kind of masks — thinner surgical ones, or heavier respiratory masks. Should they be worn at all times? Only in procedures or while visiting patients? There is also some quibbling over testing and isolation: whom to test and when, and whom to isolate, given limited bed space? Whom to send home if a staff member has symptoms, and whom to require to work?

Some hospitals allow masks outside of treatment rooms and some even make them mandatory. But a number of others say they aren’t necessary at all times and don’t allow them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance has changed several times. Currently, it says medical professionals don’t need to wear masks all the time. It also says that if there’s not enough protective equipment available, homemade solutions like bandannas or scarfs are OK for health care workers to wear.

On Tuesday Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a leading member of the federal government’s coronavirus response task force, told CNN that the C.D.C. was considering another change: it is reviewing its guidelines on whether the general public should wear masks.

Amid the confusion, furious and terrified, doctors and nurses say they must trust their own judgment. Administrators counter that doctors and nurses, motivated by fear, are writing their own rules.