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NHS staff still do not have the protective equipment they need to treat coronavirus patients, medics have said.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said doctors were putting their lives at risk by working without adequate protection.
It comes as the health secretary said 19 NHS workers had died with coronavirus since the outbreak began.
On Friday, Matt Hancock said there was enough kit for everyone and unveiled a plan for addressing shortages.
The UK recorded 980 hospital deaths on Thursday, bringing the total to 8,958.
That death toll, which does not include those who died in care homes or the community, has exceeded the worst daily figures seen in Italy and Spain – but according to England’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, it is still “impossible to say we have peaked”.
Mr. Hancock said that the government was looking into how NHS staff who had died with the virus were infected.
However, he said it was important to note that some may have caught it outside of work.
“But that doesn’t take away from the bravery of every single NHS worker,” he said, adding that his “heart goes out” to those who have died and their families.
Mr. Hancock said he was “particularly struck at the high proportion of people from minority ethnic backgrounds and people who have come to this country to work in the NHS who have died of coronavirus”.
“It is a testament to the fact that people who have come from all over the world have come and given their lives in service to the NHS and paid for that with their lives,” he said, adding that “we should recognize their enormous contribution”.
Supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) in London and Yorkshire are at “dangerously low levels”, according to the BMA.
Dr. Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said doctors were being forced into a corner and faced “heart-breaking decisions” over whether to carry on without proper protection.
He said: “This is an immensely difficult position to be in, but is ultimately down to the government’s chronic failure to supply us with the proper equipment.”
A nurse at Watford General Hospital in Hertfordshire told the BBC he felt unsafe with the level of PPE he’d been given.
He said shortages meant those working on wards with coronavirus patients were only being given a surgical mask and plastic apron, rather than a gown covering the whole body.
Last week a nursing assistant who had been looking after coronavirus patients at the hospital died.
“We are scared because we are spreading the virus,” he said. “We don’t deserve it and our patients even more.”
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has dismissed any suggestion that healthcare staff has been overusing PPE.
RCN chief executive Dame Donna Kinnair said no PPE was “more precious a resource than a healthcare worker’s life, a nurse’s life, a doctor’s life”.
It comes after Mr. Hancock warned on Friday that PPE should only where it was most needed.
He said 742 million pieces of protective gear had been delivered so far, saying: “There’s enough PPE to go around, but only if it’s used in line with our guidance. We need everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource that it is.”
Mr. Hancock said he was not “impugning anyone who works for the NHS” and “they do an amazing job”.
“But what I am reiterating, stressing, is the importance to use the right amount of PPE,” he added.
Meanwhile, the business organisation Make It British said the government had not yet taken up offers from some firms to help manufacture PPE.
The group said at least 100 companies had responded to an appeal for help four weeks ago but had heard nothing since.
