Protective supplies in the United States are running desperately low amid the "full-blown" COVID-19 outbreak, leaving medical workers and healthcare organizations searching for medical equipment.

The country has become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with confirmed cases of over 100,000.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in late February said it intended to procure 500 million masks over the next 18 months for its Strategic National Stockpile, the nation's supply of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, to help protect health workers on the frontlines. But that's not easy given the limited manufacturing capacity.

The HHS said on March 4 that the United States had only about one percent of the required respirator masks. HHS Secretary Alex Azar said the country had only 30 million at that point.

Medical staff in the United States are speaking out about their need for protective equipment on social media under the hashtag #GetMePPE. PPE refers to personal protective equipment, like masks, gowns and face shields.

Some medics are asking for donations and warning against hoarding, as hospitals are running out of supplies.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listed a table of alternative respirators from other countries because of limited supplies of N95 masks. The alternatives included KN95 and KN100 from China, FFP3 and FFP2 from Europe and DS/DL2 and DS/DL3 from Japan, according to the Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of N95 Respirators released on March 17.

The CDC has also relaxed its guidelines given the supply chain of respirators cannot meet demand by saying that face masks were "an acceptable alternative".

39 million N95 masks located

A healthcare workers union in California said it has located 39 million N95 masks and is connecting states, counties, health systems and individual hospitals to the supplier so they can purchase them in quantity.

"Within 48 hours of painstakingly calling leads and potential suppliers, the union discovered a distributor who had the 39 million masks, and has since found another supplier who says his company can produce 20 million more masks a week," said the United Healthcare Workers West in a statement. The union said it has also found a supplier which can deliver millions of face shields.

The union said its members and healthcare workers all over California are in desperate need of more protective equipment and it urged the federal government to help as the pandemic escalates day by day.

"We urgently need the federal government to step in and drive a coordinated national response to the PPE shortage," said Dave Regan, president of the union.

As of Saturday, 2,010 people in the United States had died from the coronavirus with confirmed cases in the country mounting to 121,117.