At least 5,400 nurses, doctors, and other health care workers responding to the coronavirus outbreak in the United States have been infected by the disease, and dozens have died, according to a BuzzFeed News review of data reported by every state and Washington, DC. However, the true number is undoubtedly much higher, due to inconsistent testing and tracking.

Although President Trump claimed at a coronavirus task force press briefing on Monday that the number of infected workers would be made available, that total currently remains impossible to pin down. That’s both because health care workers are still struggling to access testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, if not being actively discouraged to do so, and because infections are being inconsistently tracked and in some cases uncounted at the state level.

Still, these early numbers show for the first time just how big a toll this pandemic is taking on the nation’s health care community, many of whom are treating sick people without adequate protective gear.

“After my shift, I was told we no longer can use two plastic gowns (1 for front and 1 for back), …continued .
[Source: Buzzfeed]