WASHINGTON - As the coronavirus rages across the country, community health centers and small doctors' offices, AIDS clinics and homeless shelters are struggling with a scarcity of protective gear to buffer workers from harm, their budgets and buying power unable to compete with large medical institutions.

Radiologists at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London's Chelsea district told managers in March they thought the protective gear they'd been given to guard against coronavirus was inadequate. Earlier this month, seven of them tested positive.