A lack of available ventilators could soon put doctors and nurses in the agonizing position of prioritizing who gets them and who does not. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)

A nurse died from coronavirus after working nonstop for weeks at a hospital where staffers frustrated with dwindling supplies posed in gowns made of trash bags.

An emergency room doctor fears he had the virus long before getting too sick to work. Another nurse worries the lone mask she's issued each day won't be enough to protect her from an unending tide of hacking, feverish patients.

At New York City-area hospitals on the front lines of the biggest coronavirus outbreak in the nation, workers are increasingly concerned about the ravages of the illness in their own ranks, and that the lack of testing and protective gear is making it not a matter of if they get it, but when.

“Our emergency room was like a petri dish,'' said Benny Mathew, a nurse at Montefiore Medical Center who got word Thursday that he had COVID-19 and is now worried he may infect his wife and two daughters.

”I'm angry. We could have secured enough personal protective equipment months ago. It was happening in China since December,'' he said. ``But we thought it was never going to happen here.''

Some hospitals have had so many dying patients that the city brought in refrigerated truck trailers for bodies as a precaution. At Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, 13 people succumbed to the virus in one day. City ambulances have seen a surge in calls, responding to nearly 5,800 on Thursday alone.

Several doctors, nurses and paramedics told The Associated Press of deteriorating working conditions in emergency rooms and ICUs that make caretakers even more vulnerable.

View photos On NYC's front lines, health workers worry they will be next More

While the city has meticulously tracked the toll of its outbreak reporting 21,873 infections, 281 deaths and at least 3,900 hospitalized as of Thursday officials say they do not have numbers on how many health care workers are sick or dying. (Associated Press)

Sick patients are placed in beds packed end-to-end. Limited supplies of face masks, gowns and shields have them wearing the same protective equipment all day. A lack of available ventilators could soon put doctors and nurses in the agonizing position of prioritizing who gets them and who does not. And perhaps most troubling, changes in official guidance that allow health care workers exposed to coronavirus to continue working, as long as they themselves are not showing symptoms.

Some health care workers say they're being told they can keep working even if they've tested positive for the disease, known as COVID-19, as long as they're asymptomatic. “We just have to hope we don't get infected,'' said William da Silva, a nurse at St. Vincent's Hospital in suburban Westchester.

“People are going back to work with COVID-19, and they're going to infect the patients and each other.'' Da Silva is certain he's been infected, but he said he's been getting the run around from officials all week as he seeks to get tested.

Self-quarantined with his pregnant wife and toddler, he's so disillusioned by how he's been treated that he may not go back. “I've put them all at risk,'' Da Silva said of his family. “I don't think I want to go back to that environment after this because apparently we don't matter. I can't continue working in hospitals after this.''

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