Covid-19 lockdown unrest: Liverpool protesters clash with police and Manchester students tear down ‘prison-like’ fencing (VIDEOS)

People in Liverpool and Manchester have taken to the streets after being subjected to tougher coronavirus lockdown restrictions, leading to at least three arrests and 13 fines.

Liverpool was awash with protesters on Thursday night as local residents came together to protest against the government’s Covid-19 restrictions.

The police responded to reports of huge crowds gathering at St George's Hall in the city center at around 6.30pm. The demonstrators were dispersed but gathered again later in the evening at the Pier Head. 

Three arrests were made and 13 people were fined for their part in the disturbance. Videos also show pepper spray being deployed to neutralize troublemakers at the demonstration. 

One protestor compared the lockdown to the panic created by the millennium bug, which turned out to be unjustified.

“I'm worried about my kids. But what it is, is right, is I got onto this sort of thing, remember the year 2000, 'millennium bug,' when they scared the life out of the world for six months? This [is] the same thing. Fear is a great controller. So basically, we're being controlled using fear,” he told Ruptly, RT’s video agency.

Liverpool was the first city in England to be hit with the highest regional coronavirus restrictions on October 14 but is now subjected to the even stricter measures of the national lockdown until December 2.

Meanwhile, university students in Manchester marched around their Fallowfield campus in protest against the restrictions placed upon their lives, including the erection of a perimeter fence around their halls as a “security measure” to “help avoid the mixing of households.”

In other footage published by Ruptly, students can be seen cheering as the fencing was torn down. 

“There is fencing around the whole outside, we feel like it's completely unnecessary. It makes it feel like we're in a prison,” one of the students told the BBC. The university subsequently apologized for putting up the fence and said it would be removed on Friday. 

Many students in Manchester and across the country have been isolating for weeks and have not received face-to-face tutoring, despite paying £9,000 a year for their university education. 

Both cities, Liverpool and Manchester, have been deemed epicenters of the second wave of the coronavirus in the UK and faced local restrictions before the national lockdown commenced on Thursday.

On Friday, Liverpool will become the first city in the country to take part in a mass Covid-19 testing trial. Around 2,000 British military personnel are being drafted in to increase capacity at test sites. 

The pilot scheme will offer everyone living and working in Liverpool the opportunity to have repeat coronavirus tests over the two-week trial period. It comes amid fears that the new technology, which provides rapid results within 20 minutes, was missing up to half of Covid-19 infections.

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