LONDON: City centres reverted to ghost towns as England's 56 million people entered a second coronavirus lockdown on Thursday, amid scepticism that the stringent curbs will work to arrest the worst death toll in Europe.
World-famous tourist destinations such as London's Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square were deserted, and normally bustling cities including Manchester and Liverpool likewise fell quiet.
In the hours before the lockdown took effect at midnight, some revellers clashed with police outside packed pubs, including in parts of London and the northern city of Leeds. Miles-long traffic jams also developed as motorists sought to escape the British capital.
"You can't imagine from yesterday to today how different it is. It's completely dead now," Maria Belkihel, 42, told AFP in London's best known shopping spot, Oxford Street.
"Christmas is coming and people want to do their Christmas shopping," the Londoner said.
Last weekend, Prime Minister Boris Johnson abandoned a recently introduced system of regional curbs and announced an England-wide shutdown, after dire warnings that hospitals could soon be overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases. The Bank of England on Thursday unveiled an extra £150 billion ($195 billion) in economic support, on top of new Treasury measures to subsidise the wages of furloughed workers until March 2021.
The package gives "absolute certainty that we'll do whatever it takes" to support jobs, Johnson's spokesman told reporters, ahead of the latest televised address by the prime minister later Thursday.
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