IT IS two years since the UK went into lockdown for the first time due to coronavirus.
On March 23, 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told people they would only be allowed to leave their homes for limited reasons, including food shopping, exercise once per day, medical need and travelling for work when absolutely necessary.
All shops selling non-essential goods were told to close, gatherings of more than two people in public were banned, events including weddings – but excluding funerals – were cancelled.
In a sombre address to the nation, Boris Johnson said: “From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction – you must stay at home, because the critical thing we must do is stop the disease spreading between households.”
- READ MORE: Covid: 500 deaths in Brighton two years on from first lockdown
He called Covid-19 “the biggest threat this country has faced for decades”.
These photos show locations across Brighton and Hove the day lockdown was announced.
Eerie pictures of empty streets suggested people were abiding by the advice and staying at home.
Churchill Square shopping centre was deserted, Kingsway was clear of cars and motorists, and the hustle and bustle of the Lanes was gone.
Brighton was at the centre of the country’s first coronavirus outbreak in February 2020.
Hove Businessman Steve Walsh picked up coronavirus while at a conference in Singapore.
On his way back to the UK, he stopped off for several days at a French ski chalet, where several people were subsequently infected with the virus.
Council bosses held "catch it, bin it, kill it" signs aloft at an emergency coronavirus press conference at Hove Town Hall on the evening of February 11.
Then council leader Nancy Platts said the emergency press conference had been held because they "knew people were worried".
Mr Walsh promptly identified himself as a potential virus patient, and along with the efforts from track-and-trace at Public Health England, and the city was saved from becoming the centre of an epidemic.
He was quarantined and treated at St Thomas’ Hospital in London and later thanked NHS for their “help and care”.
Earlier this year, all coronavirus restrictions were lifted after the Prime Minister announced the government’s plans for “living with Covid-19”.
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