Hundreds of people gathered on Thursday in central London to express their protest against the tougher restrictions that came into force in the United Kingdom.

“Officers policing demonstrations in central London on Thursday, 5 November have so far made 104 arrests. Demonstrations took place in spite of new national restrictions which have been introduced to limit the spread of Coronavirus. As soon as crowds began gathering, officers took immediate action to direct people to go home, arrests were made as people failed to comply with the direction of officers. The majority of arrests were for breaches of the Coronavirus regulations,” police said in a statement on late Thursday.

Commander Jane Connors has condemned the breaches of the coronavirus restrictions by the protesters.

“Our main priority this evening has been to keep Londoners safe. We are eight months into this national pandemic and frankly there can be no excuse for people to dangerously breach regulations which are there to prevent further spread of Coronavirus,” Connors said.

The commander added that the number of arrested people was likely to further increase.

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 48.5 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.23 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The United Kingdom has confirmed more than 1.12 million coronavirus cases so far, with over 48,000 fatalities.