Healthcare workers are once again scrambling for personal protective equipment, or PPE, as cases of the coronavirus surge across the nation.

Many frontline medical personnel are forced to reuse masks, gowns and other supplies to protect them from contracting the virus. This frustrating situation of equipment shortages harkens back to the early days of the pandemic, when nurses were photographed wearing garbage bags for protection in New York hospitals.

According to The Washington Post, state officials say they have scoured suppliers both in the U.S. and overseas to try and find PPE.

"A lot of people thought that once the alarm was sounded back in March, surely the federal government would fix this, but that hasn’t happened," said Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United. In Florida, a nurse who was forced to wear a surgical mask due to shortages of N95s said she was terrified she may be infecting her patients, co-workers and family, according to the Post.

According to Axios, some medical providers say they have "adequate" PPE, but industry experts say that overall, the supply is not enough to meet the demand. And for nursing homes, which bore the brunt of fatalities earlier in the pandemic, the situation is dire. An official with the American Medical Association told Axios nursing homes and long-term care facilities are "begging for PPE."

Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged the lack of supplies in a statement last week.

"We are encouraging healthcare workers to begin now to use some of the best practices that we learned in other parts of the country to preserve and reuse the PPE supplies," he said, according to Axios.