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I’m a Manhattan nurse on the front lines of the city’s fight against the coronavirus, and here is the reality we are facing every day: We’re being sent into battle without the weapons we need to win this war.

Take the dismal lack of vital equipment, for example.

Given this contagion’s strength, we need swift action, the right gear and the resources to stop this virus in its tracks. We would never want to get to the point of having to pick and choose people with the best survival rates to determine who gets a ventilator.

Then there is the rationing of even the most basic supplies such as personal protective equipment because of shortages.

At this moment, we are being instructed to clean normally one-time-use face shields and reuse them — something that in my 15 years as a nurse has never been appropriate practice.

I’ve seen regular surgical masks being placed over the more sturdy N95s, and higher-ups say that since the N95 is covered, it can be reused. This is not the science we have previously based our standards on.

Already, workers in our ICUs are getting stressed out — and we’re not even at the height of the pandemic in the city.

We have the resources today, but in the coming days and weeks, the fear is that we won’t have what we need to deliver safe, quality care.

Meanwhile, normal protocol have gone out the window.

For example, in normal times, when nurses are exposed to a contagious disease, they get monitored and quarantined, and once cleared by testing, could back to work.

What we’re seeing right now is, if we’re exposed to a primary source, many nurses aren’t even being informed of the exposure.

If we do learn we have been exposed, we simply put on a mask and continue working until we develop symptoms. If we develop symptoms, we go home until we are asymptomatic.

Consequently, the lack of widespread testing of the medical staff in the hospital system is beyond me.

This is not best practice.

I see people still outside, congregating together, not taking this as seriously as they need to.

We need to practice social distancing, even in the hospital, where people should be wearing masks at all times. There has been considerable improvement at my hospital this week even over the past couple days, but more still needs to be done.

At this point, it would be prudent for healthcare workers to treat the hospital as if everyone is infected, because the likelihood is that we’re working alongside other people who have the virus.

I personally know of a 40-year-old male nurse who is in critical condition with the coronavirus.

Yet because of the equipment shortages and rationing, the CDC has relaxed its safeguards for workers — and hospitals have followed suit.

This is a scary time for healthcare workers such as myself. We want to do our jobs. More than anything we need quality care for our patients.

We need to raise the current standards of protection — masks, gloves, etc. — by securing and providing the most protective measures on the front lines.

We just need the tools and the resources to win this fight.

I know we can do it, but we need to pump everything out as quickly as possible.

This is all hands on deck. We need to stop this thing in its track.

But we can and should do better as a country.

Anthony Ciampa is a registered nurse and first vice president of the New York State Nurses Association