Not only is Kentucky bidding against other states for badly needed medical protective equipment to fight the coronavirus, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the federal government is furthering complicating the situation.

Beshear said Kentucky had a line on equipment when "FEMA came out and bought it all out from under us."

"It is a challenge that the federal government says, 'States, you need to go and find your supply chain,' and then the federal government ends up buying from that supply chain."

The state saw its largest single-day increase in COVID-19 cases since the first patient was announced March 6, with 39 additional cases raising the total 163 Tuesday evening.

At least four Kentuckians are confirmed to have died from the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Across the U.S., more than 52,000 people have been diagnosed and around 700 have died.

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Beshear said the state, like much of the nation, is facing a "critical shortage" of the personal protective equipment, also called PPE, that is used by frontline healthcare workers.

Kentucky is asking for more equipment, every day, from every place that it can, he said.

From the Strategic National Stockpile — a federal reserve of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for public health emergencies — Kentucky has received:

41,744 respirators

99,493 surgical masks

18,936 face shield

15,439 gowns

79 coveralls

54,972 gloves

"It's not nearly what we asked for," Beshear said. "Just like every other state. We need significantly more and one of our major challenges as a state is not having enough of this."

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"I'm going to do what it takes," he said. "We're running down every lead, every buyer, from every direction to make sure that we can get what we need. We're also out there working on making some partnerships with some major corporations and groups that have a presence here in Kentucky and beyond to try to work through their supply chain, and right now we're having some real good negotiations on that."

Beshear said the lack of equipment is delaying more widespread testing, and it creates some danger for frontline health care workers.

"We've got to make sure that we have enough of all of that, to do the type of testing that we want to do," he said. "While we have more testing capacity today than we did yesterday, and while we'll have more tomorrow than we do today, it is also still not enough."

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Reach Tessa Duvall at tduvall@courier-journal.com and 502-582-4059. Twitter: @TessaDuvall. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/subscribe.