LONDON – Closing restrictions were reduced, bars were opened and crowds flocked to the streets of English cities on Saturday, many ignored the rules of social distancing and sparked complaints from the police. Several arrests were made.
John Apter, president of the Police Federation of England and Wales, warned that it is “crystal clear” that drunk people cannot distance themselves socially.
Apter, who was patrolling in Southampton, a city on the south coast of England, tweeted that officers were dealing with “antisocial behavior, naked men, possession of class” A “drugs, happy drunkards, angry drunkards, fights, more angry drunkards. “
Elsewhere in Brentwood, a small town east of London, moments after urging people to “have fun” but “behave,” Special Inspector Steve Weaver tweeted that four people had been arrested.
“That did not last long,” he wrote.
Nicknamed “Super Saturday” and British “Independence Day” by the UK tabloid press, some bars were forced to close early after opening for the first time in three months after the coronavirus blockade.
The London Metropolitan Police said the majority of the public complied with the guidelines for social distancing, but some areas of the English capital were “remarkably busy.”
Pictures and videos taken in the Soho nightlife district of central London showed crowded streets with very few people wearing masks.
Mark Welford, 61, who runs Bloomsbury Flowers in nearby Covent Garden, headed to Soho early Saturday afternoon to see what had happened “from scratch to essentially normal activity” overnight.
Welford was initially happy to see the pubs in action again, he told NBC News in a phone interview. “But clearly there was no social distancing.”
After watching videos later that night, he was surprised to see people acting like, “It was a normal Saturday night, pre-COVID.”
Some were not comfortable with the unravel scene and decided to leave.
“I put on the mask and went home, I didn’t feel comfortable being there. It felt like all the hard work in the pen was thrown in the trash, ”said Stephen Brian Lowe in a private message on Twitter.
Low, a 20-year-old Kingston-upon-Thames real estate agent, filmed the scene of “absolute madness” in London late on Saturday afternoon before returning home.
Large crowds expressed concern that the deadliest outbreak in Europe may escalate again.
In South Devon and Cornwall counties, police said they had received more than 1,000 calls Saturday night, mainly related to the drinking-related disorder.
In eastern Nottinghamshire county, four people were arrested and several bars decided to close after alcohol-related antisocial behavior.
Pubs and restaurants worked hard to prepare for the moment, spacing tables, placing staff behind plastic counters, and checking in customers upon arrival.
Still, some pubs decided not to reopen at all on Saturday night due to continued fears of a coronavirus outbreak. Leicester, a city in the middle of England, has even had its blocking restrictions reimposed after a local outbreak earlier this week.
While England embarked on its biggest closure relief to date (beauty salons, restaurants, and museums also reopened), many think it came too soon due to still high levels of coronavirus infection.
On Friday, Britain’s medical director Chris Whitty said the pandemic “is far from over” in the United Kingdom, which has one of the highest pandemic death rates in the world.
More than 44,000 people died from the virus as of Sunday, according to British health officials.
Elsewhere in Europe, South Korea, and the US, the reopening of bars and restaurants is attributed to an increase in infections by customers who lose their inhibitions and abandon social alienation.
Cases continue to grow worldwide, as more than 11.2 million people worldwide have been infected as of Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University. With the shortage of test materials, the actual number of cases is unknown.
