At a news conference on Saturday at the White House, Vice President Mike Pence said the federal government had ordered “hundreds of millions” of N95s for health care centers across the country, but he did not say precisely when they would be delivered to workers.

The White House also signaled that American companies have been increasing efforts to restock hospitals, citing that Hanes and General Motors will make masks. But it again stopped short of discussing in detail any sort of fulfillment of the more assertive demands coming from some state and local leaders.

Some doctors in Oregon and in Washington have recently received gear from the Strategic National Stockpile, a federal repository of critical medical supplies for public health emergencies. But officials in both states said it was far less than what they had requested.