Two healthcare workers stood up to lockdown protesters in Colorado

Protests over coronavirus lockdown measures in the US have escalated over the weekend, with people taking to their cars and to city streets against what they perceive as unjust policies.

In states such as Colorado, Michigan, Maryland, protesters drove onto main streets and created gridlocks, while holding signs out of their windows. In Colorado, two healthcare workers decided to counter-protest by standing on the road, in their hospital scrubs.

Chase Woodruff, a reporter at Denver Westword, posted photos of the two healthcare workers, who told him that they worked at a local hospital in Denver and had been treating patients for weeks.

In another image, one of the protesters can be seen leaning out of her car window with a sign that says ‘Land of the Free’. Another video of the encounter between the same woman and one of the healthcare workers shows the woman telling the man to go back to China.

Shelly Bradbury, a breaking news reporter at The Denver Post, tweeted from the scene, including quotes from protesters – one protester said that the lockdown had gone for too long, and disagreed with the fact that abortion clinics and pot shops were open while her church wasn’t.

Protests happened in other states over the weekend too, such as Texas, Nevada, and Maryland.

Many of the protests had a similar format – protesters would show up in cars, gather somewhere central in a city, and would hold signs and shout slogans demanding the economy be opened up again and that people should be allowed to work. While protesters had a range of motivations, many of them seemed to believe that the effects of Covid-19 on the economy were being overstated and that the media was exaggerating the risks to people’s lives.

For most states in the US, lockdown orders have been extended further into May.

President Donald Trump has drawn up a plan that would allow states to phase out their lockdowns, but so far very few governors have indicated that they will do so in the near future.