It has been three months since the "unblocking", but the City of London is still sleeping.
The street presents an illusion of early Sunday morning, with only a few pedestrians on the road.
Through the glass facade of the tower, you can see rows of unused computers in the central business district offices.
Not far away, only the construction of the skyscraper continues as usual.
On Friday afternoon, Dean Hooker waits for customers in his tailor shop on the side of St. Swison Road in the City of London.
For a week, he has been looking forward to it, but so far, his persistence has only been favored by a person who bought a suit in a store.
"It is true that some people are walking around outside, but we need them to come in. Everything today is so lifeless and hopeless," he told the Guardian.
With the second heating up of the new crown epidemic in Europe, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a series of restrictions on September 22: urging people to (continue) work from home and shorten the business hours of public places such as bars and restaurants.
The new prevention and control measures will last for six months.
This is undoubtedly a fatal blow to the catering industry that has been hit hard.
On September 25, the third day after the introduction of the new round of restrictions, Kim's, a high-end Chinese restaurant in the heart of the City of London, announced its permanent closure.
Today, its gorgeous interior is covered with a thin layer of dust, and the green plants in the store are beginning to dry up.
A restaurant next door was left in the cold.
There is only Pierce Bumble in the store. "I have never seen such a quiet financial city. People have not returned with the "unblocking". I have some customers who need to apply before they are allowed to come to the office." The headhunter of the investment bank told Le Monde.
Benbo runs a small company with ten employees. He prefers to come to work in the office a few days a week: "I can't work well at home." He is the only person who resumed work in the company.
"A ghost town"
Idir Dogan runs a barber shop on Bishopsgate Avenue in the Financial City.
He who is on duty every day is not on the orders of customers, but whether he opens a shop or not, the rent is paid correctly.
He came to the UK from Turkey 25 years ago and has run his own shop for ten years.
Recalling the bustling crowd in front of him, he couldn't help feeling full of emotions: "Before, when you walked out of the barbershop, there were so many people that you could barely move. Now, it looks like a ghost town."
Usually, Dogan receives 55 to 60 customers every day, and there are several busy hairdressers around him.
Now, his savings are almost used up.
"I don't know what is happening or what will happen soon. There are no customers from morning till night. Everyone works from home, and I don't know if they will come back."
Richard Clark is an expert in the City of London area of Matthews and Goodman Real Estate.
He said: "The city is very beautiful and very quiet. Something is not quite right-the heart of the British economy has stopped beating."
New office era
The British capital is an exception among European cities.
According to a survey published by Morgan Stanley in September, nearly two-thirds (63%) of London office workers spend three to five days a week working from home, while in Paris, less than one-third One (29%) people work at home for more than half a week. This group accounts for 47% in Madrid and 32% in Berlin.
More than 70% of British office workers also said that working from home is really helpless, because the employer has made a similar decision or the office has been closed.
According to the "Guardian" report, before the new crown epidemic, about 500,000 people went to work in the City of London every day, and most of them took public transportation to and from get off work.
Relatively expensive transportation fees and crowded crowds during peak hours are also one of the reasons why Londoners tend to work from home.
The price of a one-way ticket on the London Underground is 4.9 pence (approximately RMB 43), while similar fares in capitals such as Paris, Berlin, and Madrid are all less than 1.9 euros (approximately RMB 15).
Crowded people bring greater risks to the spread of the epidemic.
"The London Underground in the morning rush hour gives people a feeling of playing Russian roulette with the new crown virus," Pierce Bamberg told Le Monde.
Right now, the second wave of the UK epidemic is unstoppable.
According to the data released by the British Ministry of Health, on October 9, 13,864 newly diagnosed cases in the United Kingdom were newly diagnosed. The number of newly diagnosed cases in a single day exceeded 10,000 for five consecutive days, and the cumulative number of confirmed cases exceeded 570,000.
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said yesterday that stricter blockade restrictions will be “inevitable” in order to prevent the worsening of the epidemic in the capital.
Producer | Wang Shanshan Zhang Ou
Producer | Wang Wei
Chief Editor | Li Ying
Editor | Zheng Junzhi