Nurses protest at White House over lack of protective gear during coronavirus pandemic

Registered nurses protested Tuesday in front of the White House in Washington demanding the Trump administration provide more personal protective gear for health care workers amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The nearly two dozen participants from National Nurses United, the largest union of registered nurses in the country, stood silently as the names of almost 50 nurses who died from covid-19 were read aloud.

“We’re here because our colleagues are dying,” Erica Jones, a nurse at Washington Hospital Center told NBC News.

NNU members said the Trump administration needs to use the Defense Production Act to order the mass production of N95 respirators, face shields, gowns, gloves and shoe coverings, as well as ventilators and widening the availability of testing.

Now: nurses from National Nurses United protest lack of PPE outside the White House while holding signs showing pictures of their colleagues who have died of coronavirus. They’re standing on X’s 6 ft apart to maintain social distancing. pic.twitter.com/Os8r2DsZ6z

— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) April 21, 2020

“Nurses protested today because we need to stop the spread of the virus and to do that, nurses and other health care workers need the optimal personal protective equipment to do their jobs safely,” Deborah Burger, co-president of National Nurses United, said in a statement.

In recent days. different nurses have been visible during other protests across the country.

On Monday at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, a group of nurses showed up to counterprotest about a block away from the main demonstration, holding signs asking those who opposed the stay-at-home mandate to return to their homes, according to CNN.

“We don’t think we have enough equipment in all the hospitals in Pa., to take care of all the patients that are going to be coming in based on us getting a surge,” Katrina Rectenwald, a nurse who was among the counterprotesters, told CNN affiliate WHTM.

On Sunday in Denver, health care workers wearing their scrubs blocked a similar protest in an action that went viral online.

Remarkable scene at 12th and Grant, where two healthcare workers from a Denver-area hospital — they declined to say which or give their names — are standing in the crosswalk during red lights as a “reminder,” they say, of why shutdown measures are in place. pic.twitter.com/7xTjXvGN2E

— Chase Woodruff (@dcwoodruff) April 19, 2020

A man and a woman could be seen standing in the path of a large silver pickup truck, refusing to budge while the vehicle’s occupants hurled a flurry of verbal abuse at them.