Lockdown Brits enjoy sunshine and pack out parks, ignoring calls to stay home

Lockdown-fatigued Brits ignored Boris Johnson’s calls for people to stay home and took to parks around the country on Saturday to enjoy bright skies after a week of rain.

Photos show scores of Londoners descending on the likes of Hyde Park, Battersea Park, Greenwich Park and Clapham Common, with a car park in Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire, also packed.

People were also spotted queuing outside coffee shops for a hot drink, despite the Prime Minister appealing for people to stay home to help stop the spread of Covid.

Under lockdown rules, Brits are allowed outside to go for a walk with one other person, but Downing Street also launched encouraged people to "look in the eyes" of medics amid calls for "tougher restrictions."

Calls for a harsher lockdown came after an Oxford University study claimed England's third nationwide lockdown is having "a third less impact on movement" than the first one last March.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies said on Friday the R rate in England is now between 0.8 and 1, down from last week when it was between 1.2 and 1.3, which shows lockdown is slowly bringing down the rate of infection.

Despite this, figures show one million people in England became infected in the week leading up to Friday 22 alone.

England is also facing two new coronavirus variants, which Boris Johnson said on Friday could be associated with a "higher degree of mortality."

Sir Patrick Vallance said early evidence suggested the new UK variant could increase mortality by almost a third in men in their 60s.

The Government already knew the variant was up to 70% more transmissible but had previously suggested it was no more deadly than the original coronavirus.

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  London cops raid 'shameful' 150-guest wedding at school where principal died of Covid

The Government and the police force have tried to take a tougher stand on people flouting lockdown, but authority figures have been met with resistance.

Last week, the Metropolitan Police revealed it had shut down a 150-person strong wedding at a state-funded Orthodox Jewish school in Stamford Hill, London.

Just one organiser and five attendees have been fined but detectives are on the hunt for more law breakers, the Mirror reported.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis condemned the wedding and called the celebration "shameful" as it emerged the principal of the school had died from coronavirus.

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