The coronavirus pandemic has taken the lives of over 10,000 individuals across the world, and sickened over 200,000. In the U.S., the number of confirmed cases continues to rise as more testing kits become available.

As the virus spreads, some hospitals could soon be overwhelmed by the number of coronavirus patients.

“One, we don’t have the real estate to house these patients,” Marcia Santini, a nurse at UCLA’s hospital in Westwood, told Yahoo Finance. “Two, staffing. If we start getting sick, if we’re not protected, if hospitals don’t provide the proper personal protective gear, we are going to get sick. And hospitals have been known to hoard these supplies because they’re afraid of running out.”

View photos Health care workers from Virginia Hospital Center put on their personal protective equipment before people arrive at a drive through testing site for coronavirus in Arlington, Virginia. on March 20, 2020. (Photo: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) More

‘We’re on the front lines’

NBC News surveyed with more than 250 health care professionals across the country and found that there is a dire need for more personal protective equipment (PPE) in American hospitals.

“I don’t feel like my hospital is failing us,” a nurse in Michigan said. “It’s the whole system that’s failing us.”

Furthermore, amid the deluge of infected patients, health care workers are contracting the virus — even with proper PPE equipment.

“We’re on the front lines and we’re going to respond in the best way we can to any and all folks who show up,” Dr. Glenn Raup, the executive director of Emergency Behavioral and Observation Services at St. Joseph Hospital in California, told Yahoo Finance. “If you really are that concerned, make that call ahead to your doctor, to your urgent care, to your ER, and ask questions because it might save you a trip coming in.”

View photos Confirmed coronavirus cases are increasingly rapidly in the U.S. (David Foster/Yahoo Finance) More

As the pressure increases, health care workers on are faced with an increasingly intense situation.

“The most striking part is the speed with which it has ramped up,” Ben McVane, an emergency room doctor at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, told the New York Times. “It went from a small trickle of patients to a deluge of patients in our departments.”

New York is being hit particularly hard: On Saturday, the state became the first in the country to reach 10,000 confirmed cases.

“We’re getting pounded,” Mangala Narasimhan, a doctor at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center, part of Northwell Health, the largest hospital system in New York, told the Wall Street Journal. “I’ve been in ICU care for 15 years, and this is the worst I have ever seen things.”

View photos Confirmed coronavirus cases around the world. (David Foster/Yahoo Finance) More