ARMED police officers have dispersed large crowds of anti-lockdown protesters at Trafalgar Square following a march through central London.

Demonstrators called for an end to the “tyranny” of pandemic restrictions and voiced their opposition to vaccines and paedophilia, playing Michael Jackson’s greatest hits via a PA system as they marched.

At least two people were led away in handcuffs by officers at Trafalgar Square, and Piers Corbyn, brother of former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, also attended the protest.

MINISTER may be forced to close schools to older children if coronavirus cases continue to increase at the current rate, a scientist has warned.

Professor Neil Ferguson, whose modelling led to the original lockdown in March, said the NHS would soon be unable to cope unless the spread of the disease was stemmed.

He said there were currently 8,000 people in hospital with coronavirus – around a third of the peak earlier this year – and that numbers were continuing to rise.

“It is a worrying situation,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“If the rate of growth continues as it is it means that in a month’s time we will above that peak level in March and that is probably unsustainable.”

WALES’ firebreak lockdown should bring the R value – the number of people each coronavirus case infects – below one, health minister Vaughan Gething has said.

Mr Gething told BBC Breakfast the 17-day period would be followed by a set of national measures to control the spread of Covid-19.

Asked about economists warning that the lockdown could cost the Welsh economy more than £500 million, Mr Gething said: “It’s not just about the direct costs within the firebreak, when we know there will be a challenge and loss in economic activity.

“It’s about saving a much greater loss if we need to have longer, deeper, more sustained measures.”

THE organiser of a party attended by more than 50 people has been handed a £10,000 fine for a “blatant disregard” of Covid-19 regulations.

Police were called to a flat in Simpson Street, Angel Meadows, Manchester, shortly after 11.20pm on Friday.

DJ mixing decks, industrial speakers and a buffet were found by officers, with around 50 people in attendance, Greater Manchester Police said.

The force said the party was closed down and the organiser given a £10,000 fixed penalty notice for breaching coronavirus legislation – one of the first issued since Greater Manchester entered Tier 3 restrictions.

GMP said 52 fines, for a range of rule breaches and of varying amounts, have been handed out since the area’s new alert status came into force on Friday.

THREE senior members of the Church of England have warned that struggles between Westminster and local leaders in the North over coronavirus restrictions will lead to “disillusion and unrest”.

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell said the resulting social fallout will ultimately be “more dangerous and destabilising” than the virus itself.

Writing in the Yorkshire Post with Nick Baines, the Bishop of Leeds, and David Walker, the Bishop of Manchester, he called for greater collaboration between politicians to protect the vulnerable.

It comes as more than a million people in South Yorkshire are now living under the strictest coronavirus restrictions after the county moved into Tier 3 at midnight.

The county joined Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester and Lancashire on the highest alert level for England.

The bishops’ letter highlighted the “terrible double whammy” of being poor: being more likely to contract Covid-19 and to be affected by newly imposed restrictions.