Healthcare workers in North Carolina's capital have rallied in support of the state's stay-at-home order for the second straight week, according to The News & Observer.
About a dozen healthcare workers gathered in downtown Raleigh opposite a group of hundreds who have protested the order for three weeks. According to the newspaper, they were heckled by protesters screaming at the workers: "Go to work!" and "All paychecks are essential!"
Amber Brown, a nurse practitioner at Wake Forest Baptist Health in Winston-Salem, N.C., was part of last week's counterprotest and this week's, and she told The News & Observer, "I can't believe I have to be here."
But Deborah McNally, a retired nurse, told the publication that unemployment was a bigger threat than the new coronavirus.
"They don’t realize there’s not going to be a hospital because they’re not doing elective surgeries," she said, according to The News & Observer.
The counterprotests in North Carolina come shortly after healthcare workers conducted a similar one in Denver.
North Carolina's stay-at-home order is set to expire May 8. As of 7:25 a.m. CT, April 29, 9,755 have contracted COVID-19 in the state, and 363 have been killed by the virus.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said during an April 28 news conference that he empathized with "people with families that are hanging by a thread" and the state would move into a phased reopening after reviewing indicators that it is safe to do so.