It was a single moment on a Sunday afternoon in Denver. One healthcare worker facing down protesters who want a return to normal. He stood in the middle of the street, never saying a word but conveying volumes with his stand.
We’ve used words like courage and bravery often when describing the healthcare professionals who dive head-first every day to fight a disease for which there is no cure. Imagine for one moment what they witness, shift after shift. They see the suffering patients, the anguished families, and their helpless colleagues who can often do little more than offer sympathy. They’re forced to work against a deadly disease without the proper equipment and compelled to beg for more. Colorado is no New York, but here nurses and doctors have seen nearly ten thousand cases and more than 400 deaths. And knowing how insidiously the disease spreads and how important keeping a social distance to stop this monster, you can only imagine what’s going through this person’s head, knowing the risk these protesters present not only to themselves but to those who didn’t volunteer their safety to be a part of this. It may become the iconic and certainly ironic image of this travesty.
This picture my god.
An anti-lockdown protester in Denver, Colorado, heckling a healthcare worker who had blocked traffic as a counter-protest to the hundreds out to defy social distancing and the state’s stay-at-home orders.
Credit: @dcwoodruff // @DenverWestword pic.twitter.com/fKHuBZLpXC
— Alex Stay At Home Cadier (@alexcadier) April 19, 2020
Brava to Denver photojournalist @McclaranAlyson, who got this shot of a healthcare worker in a standoff with a protester who wants the stay at home orders lifted. https://t.co/EZzawW2WNo pic.twitter.com/ooH75CSDfn
— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) April 20, 2020