Meet the Protesters in Puerto Rico Who Want More Testing

Citizens are fed up as Puerto Rico tests for the coronavirus at a far lower rate than the rest of the U.S.

A demonstrator waves a black Puerto Rican flag during a protest, calling for more Covid-19 tests to be conducted among the population. Photo: Nahira Montcourt/picture alliance/Getty Images

A cacophony of honking and chants erupted Wednesday morning outside the Puerto Rico Health Department headquarters in San Juan. But unlike the pleas spreading across the U.S. to reopen the economy, these protesters, all of whom demonstrated from the confines of their cars, had an altogether different demand: to perform more tests to diagnose the novel coronavirus.

This piquete servicarro — drive-through protest — was organized by three groups: the feminist organization Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, the anti-debt group Jornada: Se Acabaron las Promesas, and the food distribution initiative Comedores Sociales de Puerto Rico. “The incompetent handling of these cases by the Health Department impacts the government’s ability to implement public policy,” Shariana Ferrer-Núñez, a spokesperson for Colectiva, said. “We’re using misleading information from the department to say the outbreak is being contained and we could reactivate our economic activity. It’s dangerous.”

The first drive-through protest took place on April 15 — exactly one month after Gov. Wanda Vázquez ordered the island to go into lockdown in order to curb…