Mask shortage for health care workers extended into May

Front-line health care workers still experienced shortages of critical equipment needed for protection from the coronavirus into early May — including nearly two-thirds who cited insufficient supplies of N95 face masks, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

More than 4 in 10 also saw shortages of less protective surgical masks and 36% said their supply of hand sanitizer was running low, according to the poll. Roughly 8 in 10 reported wearing one mask for an entire shift, and more than 7 in 10 had to wear the same mask more than once.

The shortage of personal protective equipment for health care workers emerged in March as one of the earliest signals of the country’s lack of preparation for the coronavirus pandemic. Nurses and others have said they were forced to put their health at risk caring for highly infectious patients because they lacked adequate supplies, in particular N95 masks, which filter out 95% of airborne particles.

State governments and medical facilities went to extraordinary lengths to obtain, preserve, sanitize and reuse masks designed to be disposed after a single use if necessary. Health authorities asked a frightened public not to worsen the shortage by snapping them up.

The Post-Ipsos poll may provide the clearest nationwide measure to date of the shortages during those weeks, when the virus surged through parts of the country, overwhelming some hospitals in New York City and placing others across the nation under tremendous strain.

The survey interviewed a national sample of 8,086 U.S. adults, including 278 people who work with patients in health care settings, such as doctors’ offices, clinics, hospitals and nursing homes. The poll was conducted from April 27 to May 4; results among health workers have a 6.5point margin of sampling error.

“COVID hit like a tidal wave. We went from nothing to insanity,” said Ronnie Dubrowin, a certified nurse midwife from Connecticut who responded to the poll. “It was like one week no one had heard of this disease and the next week everybody had it.”

Ms. Dubrowin, who sees obstetric patients in two hospitals and one office setting, said masks were in such short supply during the early days of the outbreak that she resorted to heating hers in an oven to kill the virus.

“Getting protective gear was difficult for everybody,” she said. “It became a mission of so many people in hospital settings to get protective gear for their employees.”

Despite shortages, 75% of health care workers said their employer was doing enough to ensure their safety. Also, 71% of respondants approved of their governor’s handling of the crisis.

They had much less confidence in President Donald Trump. A 59% majority disapproved of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, while 41% approved.

Nearly a third of health workers said they believe restrictions were being lifted too quickly in late April and early May. A slim majority, 53%, said state governments were handling the pandemic about right, and 15% felt restrictions were not being lifted quickly enough. Those views are roughly similar to those of the general public, as are the ratings of Trump and governors.

Dr. Long Vinh, a poll respondent and pediatrician who works in the neonatal intensive care units at two San Francisco-area hospitals, said at the beginning of the outbreak some steps were taken to preserve masks, out of fear there might be a shortage. Now, he says there are no shortages of masks, gowns or other protective equipment at those hospitals: California Pacific Medical Center and Mills-Peninsula Medical Center.

“I really feel that being in the Bay Area, we were blessed and fortunate to have both a wealth of hospital capacity and resources and political leadership that took the crisis seriously,” he said.

Just over 1 in 10, or 12%, of health care workers said they do not have health insurance themselves.

And the financial outlook for many is shaky. Nearly half of health care workers, 48%, were at least somewhat concerned about paying their bills.

The Post-Ipsos poll was conducted through Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, a large online survey panel recruited through random sampling of U.S. households.