More than 150 anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine protesters arrested in London
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Police officers led several people away in handcuffs after protesters ignored requests to disperse. Several bottles and smoke bombs were thrown as demonstrators scuffled with police.
Metropolitan police said the arrests were made for breaching coronavirus restrictions and assaulting police officers among other offences.
Police officers detain an anti-lockdown protestor during an anti-lockdown demonstration in London on Saturday.Henry Nicholls / Reuters
Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell called it "a challenging day" for his officers in a statement.
England is currently in lockdown, which is due to end Wednesday, but most of the country will remain under tough restrictions as the British government tries to bring the virus under control ahead of Christmas.
The U.K. has the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe, with 58,128 deaths since the pandemic started, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. It's behind France and Spain in the number of confirmed cases on the continent at more than 1.6 million.
The country's economy has taken a hard hit from the pandemic as Britain's public debt has ballooned to 2.1 trillion pounds.
On Sunday, the British government said it had secured two million extra doses of Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine, in addition to the 5 million doses it secured two weeks ago.
Deliveries to Britain could begin as early as the spring, Reuters reported, if the vaccine meets the standards of the British health regulators.
The new deal came a day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson named Nadhim Zahawi, a junior business minister, to be in charge of the deployment of Covid-19 vaccines, in a sign that the government is readying a mass vaccination program.
The U.K. now has access to 357 million doses of vaccines from seven developers for its population of 67 million, according to a government statement, including 100 million doses of the vaccine developed by U.K.'s Oxford University.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Yuliya Talmazan
Yuliya Talmazan is a London-based journalist.
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Is incomprehensible a word? If so, I believe it is applicable in this case.
At least they are free to protest. In some parts of the world they, and perhaps their families, could just disappear, never to be heard from again.
Yes, in the free world even idiots and anarchists are free to ptotest.
... clearly evident in the aftermath of the last election.
The day tRumpturd was sworn in, was hell on earth.
But it's left wing anarchists and the likes of BLM and Antifa who continue to riot and protest.
Only to the liberal left.
But that's okay with the liberal left. Those are peaceful protesters!