The Rev. Greg Lewis can still hear the words his doctor told him after he was diagnosed with COVID-19: “If you don’t do exactly what we’re going to say, you’re going to die.”

The doctor asked Lewis, president of Souls to the Polls and pastor at St. Gabriel Church of God in Christ, if he had his affairs in order and asked him if he wanted to be resuscitated if treatment was not working.

Lewis thought about that for a moment, then the doctor took back the question and said, “in your condition, we won’t be able to revive you.”

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Lewis spent six days in Froedtert Hospital recovering from the virus and was discharged in early April.

Last weekend, when Lewis saw coverage of protests in Brookfield and Madison demanding the safer-at-home order be lifted, he became emotional.

Four of his friends died from coronavirus while he was in the hospital, he said.

“Four people of my friends died (from the virus) when I was in the hospital,” Lewis said. “And I don’t think that’s a thing that people should take lightly.”

Lewis, along with other clergy members and workers, spoke on Wednesday to denounce the protests.

“Are you willing to sacrifice any life for this?” Lewis said, addressing those who were at the protests. “We shouldn’t sacrifice one life for this, including your own and your own family.”

Rabbi Bonnie Margulis, president of Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice, urged people to follow Gov. Tony Evers’ safer-at-home order to prevent putting others at risk of contracting the virus.

“It is dismaying that protesters organized by extremists ... are taking this opportunity to launch a dangerous demonstration against the governor’s order,” Margulis said. “Thereby putting themselves, others and health care workers at risk in order to promote their ideology under the guise of helping workers.”

Margulis asked Republican lawmakers to drop the lawsuit against Evers’ extension of the order.

“The way to help is not to put us all in danger with ill-considered protests, but for all of us to urge the Republican leadership to drop their request to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to block the governor’s order,” Margulis said. “But rather to bring the Legislature back to work to pass a relief bill that will help those that need it the most.”

Mariah Clark, a nurse at University Hospital in Madison, said the recent protests “show no respect to those of us trying to keep Americans safe.”

“I’m not just talking about health care workers, I’m talking about all the essential workers that cannot stay home,” Clark said. “All of us are risking our lives during this crisis.”

Clark said nurses and other health care workers work hard to prevent the spread of the virus.

“Every day we’re asked to come in and work and put on the same mask that we’ve been wearing for days or weeks,” Clark said. “When our shifts are over we spend an hour painstakingly disinfecting everything we may have touched ... When we get home the first thing we do is get in the shower to wash off anything we might have missed in hopes of if we contract this virus, we don’t spread it to our loved ones."

Clark added she and other nurses have discussed with her family and colleagues about her last wishes if she was infected and became seriously ill.

“These are the stakes for health care workers in this pandemic, it’s life and death,” Clark said.