A market in London was packed today with little social distancing in sight as visitors helped themselves to takeaway beer on the first weekend of new coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
Londoners flocked to Broadway Market for drinks and food this afternoon, despite the new guidance to stay at home as much as possible.
People were pictured queuing up for pints outside street food restaurants and packing the streets, with many not wearing face masks.
It comes as parks remained bustling, with runners, walkers and cyclists seen at Bridgewater Canal in Manchester this morning, as people can exercise and socialise in public spaces with their household or one other person.
Costco in Watford, Hertfordshire, was also heaving with customers, who were spotted pushing trolleys piled high with toilet rolls, booze and water bottles.
Londoners queue at a street food restaurant for takeaway pints and food in a crowded Broadway Market this afternoon on the first weekend of new coronavirus lockdown restrictions
People without face masks pack the streets in a crowded Broadway Market this afternoon, as the second national lockdown continues
A man and a woman without face masks drink takeaway pints in the street at Broadway Market in London this afternoon
Two police officers can be seen patrolling around a crowded Broadway Market this afternoon, as the second national lockdown continues
Hundreds of people walk through the busy streets at Broadway Market in London despite the second England-wide coronavirus lockdown
A restaurant serves a draught beer to a man wearing a face mask at Broadway Market in London this afternoon as businesses stayed open
The images come amid warnings that the country needed ‘dramatic action’ to reduce Covid-19 transmission, despite the Government’s ‘ghastly’ presentation of data to justify the latest lockdown.
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter said it would not be sustainable for the health service to deal with the levels of coronavirus cases and hospitalisations without tougher measures than those imposed under the three-tier system.
The statistician and chair of the Winton Centre for risk and evidence communication at the University of Cambridge told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘If this is going to go down, it is going to go down very slowly unless some dramatic action is taken, which has been taken.’
Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been tested as part of a pilot mass coronavirus testing programme in Liverpool, with queues outside new test centres.
The armed forces have been brought in to the city to help deliver the scheme, which uses lateral flow tests to deliver results in under an hour for people who are not showing symptoms of the virus.
Two women walk through the busy market while drinking from open bottles. People also enjoyed draught beers after a potential loophole allows pubs serve takeaway pints
Police patrol the market in cars as Londoners socialise and stand in large huddles despite the new lockdown restrictions this weekend
Londoners photographed in a crowded Broadway Market this afternoon, as the second national lockdown continues
Mr Johnson has said the rapid testing pilot could be a ‘real way forward through the crisis’.
But health experts said plans to screen the population of Liverpool were not fit for purpose.
Sir David said: ‘The point is we are getting about 20-25,000 positive tests a day, that feeds through to about 1,500 hospitalisations a day, about 250-300 deaths a day and these are broadly stable but going up a bit – the deaths in hospitals and hospitalisations are going up slowly – and we are coming into winter.
‘Those sorts of levels, even if they stay very stable and below the first peak of the virus, unless they start dropping, we are stuck with those for months and it seems to me and others that that’s not going to be sustainable in terms of what the health service can deal with.’
A group of academics said the potential for ‘harmful diversion of resources and public money is vast’, and warned the half-a-billion-pound project could be a ‘costly failure’.
The Government is expected to announce on Saturday that the blanket provisions allowing all pubs in England to serve takeaway food and drink will be extended, while Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and The Lowry in Salford are among eight cultural organisations and venues which will benefit from the latest round of coronavirus funding.
New data shows the rate of infections across England and Wales appears to be slowing down.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said an estimated 618,700 people in England – one in 90 – had Covid-19 between October 25 and 31, up from 568,100 the week before.