Slide 1 of 50: A sign about the coronavirus is displayed over Route 50 in Davidsonville, Md., Monday, March 30, 2020. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan issued a "stay-at-home" directive in response to the coronavirus effect on Monday. "No Maryland resident should be leaving their home unless it is for an essential job or for an essential reason, such as obtaining food or medicine, seeking urgent medical attention or for other necessary purposes," Hogan said at a news conference on the Maryland State House lawn. (
Local officials and medical professionals decried President Trump for implying that New York urgently needs face masks to battle coronavirus because health care workers might be stealing or hoarding supplies.

“He needs to come to New York. He needs to walk a day in our shoes,” said Pat Kane, head of the New York State Nurses Association. “He needs to come here and tell me about pilfering.”

Two of three union members reported having inadequate personal protective equipment like masks to guard themselves against contracting coronavirus while treating patients, according to internal New York State Nurses Association surveys.

But Trump still suggested foul play was to blame after a manufacturer said during a briefing at the White House that an unnamed New York hospital’s mask usage had increased more than tenfold since the outbreak began.

“Something is going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters,” the president said during the bizarre rant on Sunday. “Where are the masks going? Are they going out of the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000 [masks used per week], and we have that in a lot of different places."

“They have to look at that in New York,” Trump added.

Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo said the accusation was unfounded.

“It’s insulting, it’s outrageous, it’s incredibly insensitive to people who right now are giving their all,” de Blasio said on NY1 Monday morning. “They’re literally watching some of their own lost to this disease…trying to make sure they have basic protection so they can go to their families… I don’t know what the president’s talking about.”

Cuomo said he didn’t know what exactly Trump was trying to say either. “If he wants to make an accusation, then let him make an accusation, but I don’t know what he’s trying to say by inference,” the governor said at a briefing Monday.

The head of the state’s nurses union said supplies have been “locked up” for at least two weeks and slammed the industry leaders for haggling with the federal government over what they’d be paid for their services.

“We are out there and we are unarmed,” said Kane, who had just told the Daily News that she learned of two more nurses succumbing to coronavirus. “For the business community to not support the troops – it’s disgusting. We’re talking about people’s lives here.”

Typically staffers are given one mask in the morning unless they’re reusing them and to get a new one, healthcare workers have to request it from a secure area, according to Kane. This is a challenge when dealing with critically ill patients in a life and death situation, because nurses and other health care workers cannot take a break from incubating someone to request a mask.

“Those supplies go in, they get used immediately,” de Blasio said on PIX11.

Some 90% of union members have been exposed to COVID-19 and only 5% of those exposed have been tested, according to internal surveys cited by Kane.

The mayor on NY1 that the president should focus on getting New York the supplies and personnel needed to treat thousands of patients infected by the coronavirus and “actually support our health care workers, respect them.”

De Blasio stressed the city has enough ventilators, face masks, protective gear and other medical supplies to treat coronavirus patients through April 5. He called on the feds for 400 more ventilators “right away” this week and for more military doctors, nurses and other staff to be deployed to the city.

Kane said health care workers also need IV pumps and pulse oximeters in addition to protective gear and ventilators.

The president should praise health care workers instead of implying an insidious conspiracy, the mayor said.

“All of our front-line health care workers, they’re going through hell right now…they are seeing people die around them all the time,” he said on CNN. “They’re just asking for the ammunition to fight with.”