What do India and UK have in common? Covidiots!

Team Udayavani, Apr 17, 2020, 4:54 PM IST

London: Citizens of United Kingdom, which has witnessed as many as 13,700 Covid-19 related deaths, took to streets on Thursday to applaud and commemorate frontline workers who have been fighting the battle against coronavirus.

Incidentally scenes from the few places across London seemed like a repeat of when Indians forgot the social distancing norms to cheer for medical fraternity and health workers earlier in March this year,

Termed as ‘Clap for Carers’, the mass clapping and applause has been taking place on each Thursday since the past four weeks. This Thursday too people were seen standing in their balconies, gardens, and rooftops to cheer the workers. However, in some places like Westminster bridge in London, things went awry as locals took to streets to celebrate and cheer the workers with total disregard to the social distancing rule.

A video of the incident was tweeted by a doctor who expressed her shock over the lack of social distancing.

An aerial footage of Westminster bride after 8 pm showed hundreds of police cars crammed in on a road with people million around. Similar scenes were seen outside hospitals and police stations where many medical workers and cops themselves were out cheering for essential workers.

As the videos and images went viral over social media, netizens slammed the public for disregarding the two-metre social distancing rule in the presence of police.

“F**king hell, London. Westminster Bridge. Thursday. 8pm. People #ClapForOurCarers. Regardless of the time, and your clapping for NHS staff, you don’t get immunity in this period! Police are NOT enforcing social distancing AT ALL; they are complicit!,” wrote a Twitter user.

Fucking hell, London.

Westminster Bridge. Thursday. 8pm. People #ClapForOurCarers.

Regardless of the time, and your clapping for NHS staff, you don’t get immunity in this period!

Police are NOT enforcing social distancing AT ALL; they are complicit!pic.twitter.com/j8dLL51At3

— Rick O’Shea (@RickOShea321) April 16, 2020

Another user tweeted, “This clapping stuff is becoming a vanity project now. People clambering to show that THEY care for the NHS more than anyone else, and will do anything to go viral and prove it. Utter bollocks. Just don’t vote Tory and protest for payrises. Take proper action, not clapping.”

This clapping stuff is becoming a vanity project now. People clambering to show that THEY care for the NHS more than anyone else, and will do anything to go viral and prove it. Utter bollocks. Just don’t vote Tory and protest for payrises. Take proper action, not clapping

— ForzaSchumi ?️‍??? (@mattcox15) April 17, 2020

In India, Prime Minister Modi had made two appeals to the people – clapping for health workers the second being lighting of diyas to express solidarity. On both occasions people broke social distancing norms and gathered in huge numbers beating plates, drums and bursting crackers etc.

Meanwhile, global cases of coronavirus have been consistently mounting with over 1,45,568 deaths in a span of months.