“This is our Chernobyl,” said one New York hospital doctor, who like other health care professionals interviewed for this article, requested VICE not include his name or place of work. “The people in charge are not listening to the people on the ground. Everything is getting caught up in bureaucracy.”

With the deadly coronavirus quickly spreading through New York City, the city’s doctors and nurses are panicking that a lack of tests, beds, ventilators, and protective equipment have set them up for failure in one of the most critical fights in the city’s history.

This week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that the virus could peak in a month and a half. But as of Thursday, New York City already had confirmed 3,600 cases of coronavirus—up from 2,000 cases just the night before—and New York State had 5,200 confirmed cases, the most of any state in the country. Cuomo has asked President Donald Trump to mobilize the Army Corps of Engineers and build temporary medical facilities in New York. “It’s only a matter of time before our state's ICU beds fill up,” Cuomo tweeted Monday. “The federal gov't must act.” According to New York hospital staff, the extra beds are already necessary. The growing number of cases have left hospital staff feeling overwhelmed by the flood of COVID-19 patients—a situation made worse by conflicting messaging and loosened safety standards that staff fear could increase their and their patients’ chance of exposure to the virus.

A firm COVID-19 fatality rate has been difficult to lock down. The New York Times recently reported that many "scientists and public health officials who have studied the data so far say they expect a fatality rate for Covid-19 of around 1 percent." But a separate New York hospital doctor said that New York’s fatality rate could inch closer to Italy’s seemingly much higher one if the state doesn’t take action to improve its infrastructure and facilities soon. “The 1 percent mortality rate is based on perfect ICU care,” the doctor said.“We need infrastructure to be built and to be protected."

“They’ve resorted to putting up tents in the halls of the emergency department to isolate people. Our hospital system just isn’t equipped for something like this.”

To successfully fight coronavirus, New York hospitals will require fast and reliable tests; quarantine and isolation facilities; ICU beds and respirators, personal protective gear for staff, and enough staff to have dedicated teams for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients. Right now, New York doesn’t have enough of those things, sources said.