The governor of the state of Colorado in the U.S. expressed his appreciation for a donation of 10,000 masks from central China's Hunan Province, as well as other Chinese individuals sending in medical supplies for COVID-19 containment, reported local media.

"I want to thank the Chinese province of Hunan that has kindly sent us 10,000 masks," said Jared Polis at an afternoon news conference on Wednesday according to news channel Denver 7.

Polis said that many local citizens have contacted the government about how their relatives or acquaintances are helping from China amid the acute shortage of medical supplies in the state and nationwide.

"It seems like every Coloradan, or at least the thousands that have contacted us, have a contact or aunt or uncle in China or somewhere that's helping us," he said.

"I have to tell you how crazy ordering in this environment is," said Polis, noting how valuable personal protective equipment (PPE) is at this stage of the pandemic.

He added that as the supplies from the federal government were not efficient, the state is reaching out to Chinese companies and manufacturers to negotiate larger orders to secure the stockpiles for PPE in the next few weeks.

"And at one point, I even considered (sending) over our own state 747 to China and trust our negotiators to be able to fill it before it came back," which now would not be the case, the top state official said.

In response, the Chinese Embassy in the United States said on its official Twitter account that this was "a heartwarming episode" between Hunan and Colorado. 

"Virus knows no border, but we have good friends," the post wrote. In a television news clip by Denver 7 on Wednesday, statistics show that Colorado has seen 3,342 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections, 620 people hospitalized and 80 deaths.

The governor declared a state of emergency on March 10, which entails a series of orders including shutting down all the restaurants and bars except for deliveries and limiting public gatherings to gear up efforts in breaking down virus transmission.

The total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has passed 245,000, with a climbing death toll nearing 6,000, according to Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.