When a doctor at one of New York City’s top hospitals arrived for work on Tuesday night, she found the following items in the bag of protective equipment that she received: a mask, an eye shield — and, in place of the usual medical gown, a plastic white-and-navy New York Yankees poncho, the kind available for purchase on rainy game days.

Outraged, the doctor, an obstetrician-gynecologist resident at the hospital, part of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, took a picture of the poncho and posted it on Twitter. “I’m a physician at a hospital in NYC and THIS IS THE ‘PPE’ I WAS JUST HANDED for my shift,” she wrote, using the acronym for “personal protective equipment.”

The post was retweeted tens of thousands of times, emerging as a viral illustration of the equipment shortages that have plagued hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

From Seattle to Miami, but especially in New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in the United States, workers have said they do not have enough gear to protect themselves from the virus as they treat patients. Doctors and nurses have had to reuse equipment or use trash bags and scarves for protection.