Updated 14:10 IST, October 13th 2020
London: People defy curfew to play cricket; netizens ask covidiots to 'stop this madness'
People in London's Peckham district defied lockdown and COVID restrictions and came down to the street to play a friendly game of cricket
A group of Londoners in the UK recently decided to defy lockdown amidst the COVID-19 crisis and throng the streets for a friendly game of cricket. The British government in response to the rising coronavirus cases has decided to reimplement virus restrictions and even introduced a new three-tier approach to fighting the pandemic. The restrictions have caused a lot of frustration among the people and in what appears to be a spontaneous gathering people decided to defy lockdown rules and play cricket on the streets at night in Peckham, a district in south London.
Londoners defy Peckham curfew
In the video that was uploaded by Emmy winning documentary filmmaker James Jones, dozens of people can be seen on the streets standing in a large circle and not observing social distance norms at all. The video also shows a person bowling to a waiting batman and the crowd loudly cheering once the ball was hit. Another important thing to notice in the video is that none of those gathered on the streets appears to be wearing masks or face coverings. Take a look at the video below.
The video that was uploaded on Twitter on October 11 has quickly gone viral and has already received more than 7,000 retweets and upwards of 43,000 likes. While those in the video may see their actions as harmless and reliving a bit of lockdown stress, not all saw it that way and termed their behaviour as grossly ‘irresponsible’.
But not all in the comments section vilified their behaviour. A lot of commenters pointed out that COVID-19 was not going away for a long time and that people have to get used to living with it. Others were sympathetic to the frustrations caused by the lockdown and the need to leave the house.
The COVID-19 pandemic which saw its first outbreak in a wet market in Wuhan, China last year has now spread all across the world. The virus, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation, has infected over 37 million people worldwide with the global death toll crossing 1,000,000. The UK has reported more than 600,000 positive COVID-19 cases and a death toll of over 42,000.
Published 14:11 IST, October 13th 2020