Powerful photos show healthcare workers quietly standing up to anti-lockdown protesters in Denver

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Powerful photos show healthcare workers quietly standing up to anti-lockdown protesters in Denver
Health care workers stand in the street in counter-protest to hundreds of people who gathered at the State Capitol to demand the stay-at-home order be lifted in Denver, Colorado, on April 19. Alyson McClaran / Reuters
  • Powerful photos show two people dressed in N95 masks and scrubs standing defiant against anti-lockdown protesters on Sunday in Denver, Colorado.
  • The Denver protesters were calling for state lockdown orders to be lifted while the apparent healthcare workers were counter-protesting silently in the street.
  • Video taken of the standoff shows a protester in her car yelling at one healthcare worker to "go to China if you want communism."
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
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Powerful photos captured the moment when two apparent healthcare workers stood defiantly in the way of anti-lockdown protesters in Denver, Colorado.

The photos were taken on Sunday by photojournalist Alyson McClaren during a rally calling for states to lift coronavirus lockdown measures. According to The Denver Post, several hundred protesters descended on Colorado's state Capitol during the rally.

In the photos, counter-protesters, wearing N95 masks and scrubs, stood in the middle of the road to stop a convoy of cars protesting near the Capitol building.

The anti-lockdown protesters were driving in a gridlock to demonstrate against the measures, while others carried signs that read, "All jobs are essential" and "Dangerous freedom over gov't tyranny," according to ABC News.

McClaran told The New York Times that the healthcare workers "were blocking the roads until the police force stepped in. People were putting their cars right up against them."

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Powerful photos show healthcare workers quietly standing up to anti-lockdown protesters in Denver
Health care workers stand in the street in counter-protest to hundreds of people who gathered at the State Capitol to demand the stay-at-home order be lifted in Denver, Colorado, on April 19. Alyson McClaran / Reuters

Video was also taken of the standoff between the anti-lockdown protesters and the healthcare workers. In footage posted to Twitter by user Marc Zenn, one woman rolls down her window and yells at one of the healthcare workers to "go to China if you want communism."

"This is a free country. Land of the free. Go to China if you want communism," she said. "You can go to work why can't I go to work?"

The healthcare worker is seen standing silently in the video.

As of Sunday evening, the US has reported over 759,000 coronavirus cases and over 40,000 deaths. Colorado has recorded 9,730 cases and 420 deaths.

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In America, about 306 million people are under some form of lockdown, Business Insider previously reported. While most people are at home, healthcare workers are on the frontlines handling massive influxes of coronavirus patients at local hospitals.

Over the past two months, more than 9,000 US healthcare workers contracted the coronavirus, according to a report from the CDC. As of last week, at least 27 had died.

On Sunday evening, President Donald Trump defended the protesters resisting coronavirus lockdowns as "good people" who were suffering from "cabin fever."

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