Workers of the world scaled back their traditional May Day demos on Friday with coronavirus lockdowns forcing many to rally online while a determined few hit the streets in face masks.

The traditional festival of the workers' movement attracts millions of people annually to loud and boisterous marches, and occasional violent confrontations with police.

But with strict social distancing rules in most countries to halt the spread of the virus, many union leaders opted to delay gatherings or move events online faced with the Covid-19 outbreak that has killed more than 233,000 people worldwide.

May Day carries extra significance this year after the epidemic sent the global economy into a tailspin, put unprecedented numbers of people out of work, and cast some of the world's lower paid workers — nurses, garbage collectors, shop tellers and delivery drivers — in the role of modern-day heroes.

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Header image: Labourers load sacks of wheat grains onto a truck on International Labour Day at a railway station in Amritsar, India on May 1. — AFP