A group of registered nurses gathered outside the White House on Tuesday in honor of nurses who have died of COVID-19 and to demand mass production of personal protective equipment.

National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the country, organized the protest to call attention to the thousands of health care workers nationwide who were infected by the coronavirus because of lack of protective equipment, the union said in a statement.

About a dozen nurses donned face masks or bandanas and stood about six feet away from each other during the demonstration.

In a powerful statement, the names of U.S. nurses who were known to have died of COVID-19 were read aloud during the protest. Forty-six names were read, including two with a "name withheld" designation.

“Nurses protested today because we need to stop the spread of the virus and to do that, nurses and other health care workers need the optimal personal protective equipment to do their jobs safely,” Deborah Burger, RN, co-president of National Nurses United, said in a statement to USA TODAY.

“We need Congress and the White House to act now and mandate that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration issue an emergency temporary standard to protect health care workers and other frontline workers from COVID-19 exposure. It is inexcusable that Congress is debating a new COVID-19 interim package without including a mandatory OSHA standard for health care workers in the bill.”