WATCH | Snowy superspreader: Hundreds break lockdown rules to join massive snowball fight in the UK

About 200 people broke UK lockdown rules this week to take part in a massive snowball fight at a park in Leeds, as the country battles a vicious wave of the coronavirus that has left some hospitals with no beds to treat patients.

According to the BBC, a large crowd took part or looked on as snowballs were thrown in Leeds' Hyde Park on Thursday afternoon, in clear violation of lockdown rules to only meet with those in your household or support bubble.

A video of “the battle of Hyde Park” was shared on social media and showed two groups of people charging and throwing snowballs at each other.

“We were going for a walk in the park, it's literally around the corner from our house, and we heard all this commotion. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was stood there for a good 10 minutes and there were times when it quietened down and then picked back up again,” onlooker Liam Ford told The Telegraph and Argus.

The fight came amid reports by Metro UK that hospitals in the country were fast running out of beds to treat patients.

It said that a London hospital was forced to send patients back to ambulances for treatment due to an “overwhelming” number of Covid patients in its ICU ward.

“It’s not the fault of the staff, but the sheer numbers are so unprecedented and being full like this means that you just have to do your best to adapt. But it’s not the standard (of care) I signed up to,” a medic told the paper.

According to the Worldometers coronavirus watch, the UK has the fifth highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world with 3,260,258 total cases, 1,767,276 active cases and 86,015 deaths so far.

SA is number 16 on the same chart. Health minister Zweli Mkhize said on Thursday that the country had reported 18,503 new cases of the virus. The total number of Covid-19 cases in SA is 1,296,806, with 211,214 active cases and 35,852 deaths.