Several states have seen protests against the stay at home orders issued by their governors during the COVID-19 crisis.

One arrest was made after North Carolina residents gathered outside the state assembly on Tuesday, April 14 to protest the statewide stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Roy Cooper to combat the novel coronavirus.

Cooper originally issued the directive on March 30 and ordered it to last until April 29. He later claimed that relaxing the restrictions would create chaos.

“We continue to see the spread of the virus accelerate through North Carolina but at a much slower pace because people are following the executive orders on social distancing,” he said on Monday. “These models show consistently that our executive orders work and that wholesale lifting of those orders would be a catastrophe.”

During the event, Raleigh police arrested at least one person who refused to leave the scene after more than 100 people gathered due to a “#ReOpenNC” campaign on social media.

A few dozen protesters, many with young children, gathered in Virginia’s state capital of Richmond on Thursday, April 16 in defiance of Democratic Governor Ralph Northam’s mandate, the latest in a series of demonstrations this week around the country.

The protests have taken on a partisan tone, often featuring supporters of President Donald Trump, and critiquing governors whose shelter-at-home directives are intended to slow the spread of a pandemic that has killed more than 31,000 across the United States.

On Wednesday, April 15, thousands of Michigan residents blocked traffic in Lansing, the state capital, while protesters in Kentucky disrupted Democratic Governor Andy Beshear’s afternoon news briefing on the pandemic, chanting “We want to work!”

Utah and Ohio also saw demonstrations this week, and more are planned for Oregon, Idaho and Texas.

The United States has seen the highest death toll of any country in the pandemic, and public health officials have warned that a premature easing of social distancing orders could exacerbate it.

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to “reopen” the economy as soon as possible and has clashed with governors over whether he can overrule their stay-at-home orders.

In Michigan, where Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has imposed some of the country’s toughest limits on travel and business, some protesters at “Operation Gridlock” wore campaign hats and waved signs supporting Trump.

The political wrangling over the COVID-19 crisis has begun to take on familiar partisan battle lines. Democratic strongholds in dense urban centers such as Seattle and Detroit have been hard hit by the virus, while more Republican-leaning rural communities are struggling with the shuttered economy but have seen fewer cases.

Increasingly, Republican state lawmakers, including some in Texas, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, have begun putting pressure on governors to reopen businesses. Pennsylvania’s Republican-led legislature passed a bill that would loosen restrictions, which Democratic Governor Tom Wolf was expected to veto.

Both Democratic and Republican governors have resisted calls to abandon distancing too quickly. On Thursday, April 16, five Democratic governors and two Republican governors in the Midwest, including Whitmer in Michigan, said they would coordinate efforts.