UK PM Boris Johnson announces lockdown measures in London, telling cafes, pubs and restaurants to close - CNBC

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks during a coronavirus news conference inside number 10 Downing Street on March 19, 2020 in London, England.

Leon Neal - WPA Pool | Getty Images

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced lockdown measures in the capital city of London, telling cafes, bars and restaurants to close from Friday.

Speaking at a daily press conference on the coronavirus outbreak, Johnson said: "We are collectively telling cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants to close tonight as soon as they reasonably can and not to open tomorrow."

He clarified takeout services for these businesses would be able to continue.  

"We are also telling nightclubs, theaters, cinemas, gyms and leisure centers to close on the same timescale."

"These are places where people come together, and indeed the whole purpose of these businesses in many cases is to bring people together. But, the sad thing is, I'm afraid today, for now at least, physically we need to keep people apart," Johnson said.

It was not immediately clear whether the recommendations were enforceable by law, although Johnson said licensing laws would allow the government to order these businesses to close.

The prime minister said the newly announced measures would be reviewed on a monthly basis.

To date, the U.K. has reported 3,297 cases of the coronavirus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, with 168 deaths. 

Sterling rose on the news, trading up 1.5% to reach $1.1657 Friday evening London time

'Unprecedented' measures

Standing alongside Johnson at the daily press conference Friday, U.K. Finance Minister Rishi Sunak announced the government would pay 80% of wages for employees who are unable to work — up to £2,500 a month.

Sunak described the extra measures as "unprecedented" in the history of the British state.

It comes roughly 24 hours after the prime minister warned further restrictive measures might be needed in the capital city, with evidence suggesting the flu-like virus is spreading faster in London.

On Thursday, he suggested the U.K. could turn the tide against the coronavirus within 12 weeks if the right measures were taken.

Schools in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will all close until further notice from Friday.

The former mayor of London has ruled out the prospect of stopping public transport in London, despite speculation about possible travel restrictions where approximately 9 million people live. 

The U.K. government has been criticized for being too cautious with their approach to the outbreak. 

Separately, Transport for London (TfL) announced Thursday that up to 40 Tube stations on the London Underground had closed as part of a partial network shutdown.

TfL also said there would be no night Tube and that bus services would be reduced. 

Epicenter of the outbreak

The U.K. has reported the sixth-highest number of coronavirus cases in Europe, behind Italy, Spain, Germany, France and Switzerland. The WHO recently declared Europe as the new epicenter of the outbreak.

Italy has recorded the highest number of COVID-19 infections on the continent. It has also registered more deaths than any other country worldwide, overtaking China — where the outbreak first started in December last year.

Earlier this week, the U.K.'s finance minister announced a £330 billion ($398 billion) aid package of loans for businesses, as well as a business rates holiday and grants.

— CNBC's Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report.

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2020-03-20 17:42:26Z
52780673462371

The UK is closing schools to all except the children of 'key workers.' Here's who they are - CNN

While most parents are trying to figure out what to do with their newly free children, the children of workers deemed critical to the country's response to Covid-19 will be allowed to go to school.

The government said people who fall into this category should contact their local authority, which will allocate a local school for their children.

"We are grateful for the work of teachers and workers in educational settings for continuing to provide for the children of the other critical workers of our country," the government said in a statement. "It is an essential part of our national effort to combat this disease," it added.

Here are the jobs covered by the exception:

Health and social care

This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff, including volunteers.

The support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK's health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.

Education and childcare

Nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals necessary for delivering the government's Covid-19 response plan.

Key public services

Those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters providing public service broadcasting.

Local and national government

This only includes those administrative roles essential to the effective delivery of the Covid-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits.

Food and other necessary goods

People involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery, as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example, hygiene supplies and veterinary medicines).

Public safety and national security

Police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractors and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defense and national security or to the response to the Covid-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including overseas.

Transportation

Those keeping air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transportation running.

Utilities, communication and financial services

Staff needed to provide essential financial services, the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors, the information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemical, telecommunication, postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors.

Find the UK government's full guidance here.

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2020-03-20 10:17:00Z
52780675978520

London amid coronavirus: Empty shelves but busy bars - CNN

The changing advice and the lack of widespread testing leave the collective impression here that it is either too late to stop what is happening, or something, inescapable and mammoth, is looming. This densely packed city of over 9 million simply can't make up its mind. Some shelves are empty, but some bars full.

"It looks as though London is now a few weeks ahead" of the rest of the country in the virus spread, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said out of nowhere on Monday. And given that the UK is meant to be a few weeks behind Italy, that gave the impression that collapse was imminent. But the lack of widespread testing here, means we -- and Johnson -- simply don't have the solid data, just the modeling.

On Thursday, a friend's husband out shopping reported raised voices over toilet paper left at a supermarket checkout in the Isle of Dogs, in the East End. A couple fighting over an indiscernible item in Lewisham, south of the Thames, caused security guards to rush in and knock people over. All over the course of one hour. Londoners will joke about it, until they're caught in it themselves.

The ubiquitous black cabbies were complaining of another fall in business. "I think the government has got the science right," one told me, as he solidly refused to stop talking.

But this is the question we are all asking. The idea of "herd immunity" -- of letting enough people catch the virus to mean our population is immune enough not to support it in the future -- seemed smart. Smart in that very British post-colonial, Brexit way of thinking you are smarter than pretty much all other countries, based on the solid hunch of a few clever people, and some confidence.

Was the sudden lurch Wednesday to school closures on Friday, and possible lockdowns in the city at the weekend, informed purely by new modeling based on fresh data about the virus' appalling severity from Italy? Or was it answering a chorus of criticism that Britain was going too much alone, in keeping the country open as usual?

As early as a week ago, my local store was crammed by 10 a.m., with shoppers walking past aisles of fresh produce, and instead electing to buy all the pasta, soap, bleach and toilet paper, as though guided by a future apocalypse that had yet to stop fish being delivered daily.

My barber said he will stay open "until they tell him to shut." The butcher remarked how "lovely and quiet" the skies were without planes, as he dumped twenty chicken breasts into my bag, before taking a call from a wholesaler whose prices had gone up again. Just near Holloway Road, on Thursday, an entire car's fender and number plate had been left on the side of the road, a harbinger perhaps of how great a chaos one driver felt we were sliding in to.

The UK's free health service NHS -- always the underfunded and adored hero of a country unable to appreciate how much basic medicine costs elsewhere -- has been caught in the headlights. Changing centralized advice has also not helped. A friend said she tried to go for a run on Hampstead Heath -- still crowded on Wednesday -- with a NHS manager friend, but they never got going as the manager was always taking urgent phone calls.

My brief experience of the NHS showed its problems. I'd had a cough since going to Munich, Germany for its security conference in mid-February. Or was it since I climbed into my parents' loft to help clear it out? I can't tell. After one boozy night a fortnight later, I woke up with a very mild fever (37.4 degrees Celsius/99.3 degrees Fahrenheit). I dialed 111 -- the NHS helpline -- and got told I probably didn't have coronavirus, but needed to see a doctor in the next two hours.

The doctor, herself suffering from a heavy cold, checked my vitals and diagnosed heavy man-flu and self-pity, saying I didn't really have a fever (below 38 degrees Celsius) and definitely didn't qualify for a test. She sent me packing. But a week later, the advice had changed and -- had I that fever and new cough now -- neither I, nor my partner, would have left the house for two weeks.

This is where many friends stand, exchanging stories of a tightness of the chest or an unusual bout of flu that didn't seem to go away -- all over the past 6 weeks. We don't know if that means we had "it," or just the flu. It's important to note that "as of 9 a.m. on 18 March 2020, 56,221 people have been tested in the UK, of which 53,595 were confirmed negative and 2,626 positive," the government says. So even those with enough symptoms to be tested have a very low chance of having had coronavirus. Our ignorance should be chilling, but somehow I've filled the blanks with assumptions for comfort.

We've seen how drastic the planning for disaster is. Draft legislation would let police arrest those evading quarantine. Volunteer workers would have their wages protected if they help out the NHS. The army could be called in, certainly to ship supplies to hospitals, perhaps to do more. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to keep the economy afloat, in extraordinary hurry, when the future is something no algorithm can grapple with.

As the weekend and its uncertainty approaches, we're left draining the most we can out of homes that used to be places of transit and rest, and are now where we keep our stores, work, house errant family members, and take deliveries with a new, alien appreciation.

But also, in a city where eye contact a month earlier to some seemed like harassment, strangers are suddenly intimately aware of each other. Sometimes, so they can keep a medically safe distance. Sometimes, to be sure the elderly get where they need to on the crowded sidewalk. And sometimes, simply to smile, and take pleasure in letting the other person in the queue go first.

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2020-03-20 08:54:48Z
CAIiEGgEelJoG4JD_NEqja69zIwqGQgEKhAIACoHCAowocv1CjCSptoCMPrTpgU

London amid coronavirus: Empty shelves but busy bars - CNN

The changing advice and the lack of widespread testing leave the collective impression here that it is either too late to stop what is happening, or something, inescapable and mammoth, is looming. This densely packed city of over 9 million simply can't make up its mind. Some shelves are empty, but some bars full.

"It looks as though London is now a few weeks ahead" of the rest of the country in the virus spread, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said out of nowhere on Monday. And given that the UK is meant to be a few weeks behind Italy, that gave the impression that collapse was imminent. But the lack of widespread testing here, means we -- and Johnson -- simply don't have the solid data, just the modeling.

On Thursday, a friend's husband out shopping reported raised voices over toilet paper left at a supermarket checkout in the Isle of Dogs, in the East End. A couple fighting over an indiscernible item in Lewisham, south of the Thames, caused security guards to rush in and knock people over. All over the course of one hour. Londoners will joke about it, until they're caught in it themselves.

The ubiquitous black cabbies were complaining of another fall in business. "I think the government has got the science right," one told me, as he solidly refused to stop talking.

But this is the question we are all asking. The idea of "herd immunity" -- of letting enough people catch the virus to mean our population is immune enough not to support it in the future -- seemed smart. Smart in that very British post-colonial, Brexit way of thinking you are smarter than pretty much all other countries, based on the solid hunch of a few clever people, and some confidence.

Was the sudden lurch Wednesday to school closures on Friday, and possible lockdowns in the city at the weekend, informed purely by new modeling based on fresh data about the virus' appalling severity from Italy? Or was it answering a chorus of criticism that Britain was going too much alone, in keeping the country open as usual?

As early as a week ago, my local store was crammed by 10 a.m., with shoppers walking past aisles of fresh produce, and instead electing to buy all the pasta, soap, bleach and toilet paper, as though guided by a future apocalypse that had yet to stop fish being delivered daily.

My barber said he will stay open "until they tell him to shut." The butcher remarked how "lovely and quiet" the skies were without planes, as he dumped twenty chicken breasts into my bag, before taking a call from a wholesaler whose prices had gone up again. Just near Holloway Road, on Thursday, an entire car's fender and number plate had been left on the side of the road, a harbinger perhaps of how great a chaos one driver felt we were sliding in to.

The UK's free health service NHS -- always the underfunded and adored hero of a country unable to appreciate how much basic medicine costs elsewhere -- has been caught in the headlights. Changing centralized advice has also not helped. A friend said she tried to go for a run on Hampstead Heath -- still crowded on Wednesday -- with a NHS manager friend, but they never got going as the manager was always taking urgent phone calls.

My brief experience of the NHS showed its problems. I'd had a cough since going to Munich, Germany for its security conference in mid-February. Or was it since I climbed into my parents' loft to help clear it out? I can't tell. After one boozy night a fortnight later, I woke up with a very mild fever (37.4 degrees Celsius/99.3 degrees Fahrenheit). I dialed 111 -- the NHS helpline -- and got told I probably didn't have coronavirus, but needed to see a doctor in the next two hours.

The doctor, herself suffering from a heavy cold, checked my vitals and diagnosed heavy man-flu and self-pity, saying I didn't really have a fever (below 38 degrees Celsius) and definitely didn't qualify for a test. She sent me packing. But a week later, the advice had changed and -- had I that fever and new cough now -- neither I, nor my partner, would have left the house for two weeks.

This is where many friends stand, exchanging stories of a tightness of the chest or an unusual bout of flu that didn't seem to go away -- all over the past 6 weeks. We don't know if that means we had "it," or just the flu. It's important to note that "as of 9 a.m. on 18 March 2020, 56,221 people have been tested in the UK, of which 53,595 were confirmed negative and 2,626 positive," the government says. So even those with enough symptoms to be tested have a very low chance of having had coronavirus. Our ignorance should be chilling, but somehow I've filled the blanks with assumptions for comfort.

We've seen how drastic the planning for disaster is. Draft legislation would let police arrest those evading quarantine. Volunteer workers would have their wages protected if they help out the NHS. The army could be called in, certainly to ship supplies to hospitals, perhaps to do more. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to keep the economy afloat, in extraordinary hurry, when the future is something no algorithm can grapple with.

As the weekend and its uncertainty approaches, we're left draining the most we can out of homes that used to be places of transit and rest, and are now where we keep our stores, work, house errant family members, and take deliveries with a new, alien appreciation.

But also, in a city where eye contact a month earlier to some seemed like harassment, strangers are suddenly intimately aware of each other. Sometimes, so they can keep a medically safe distance. Sometimes, to be sure the elderly get where they need to on the crowded sidewalk. And sometimes, simply to smile, and take pleasure in letting the other person in the queue go first.

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2020-03-20 07:54:47Z
52780673462371

London amid coronavirus: Empty shelves but busy bars - CNN

The changing advice and the lack of widespread testing leave the collective impression here that it is either too late to stop what is happening, or something, inescapable and mammoth, is looming. This densely packed city of over 9 million simply can't make up its mind. Some shelves are empty, but some bars full.

"It looks as though London is now a few weeks ahead" of the rest of the country in the virus spread, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said out of nowhere on Monday. And given that the UK is meant to be a few weeks behind Italy, that gave the impression that collapse was imminent. But the lack of widespread testing here, means we -- and Johnson -- simply don't have the solid data, just the modeling.

On Thursday, a friend's husband out shopping reported raised voices over toilet paper left at a supermarket checkout in the Isle of Dogs, in the East End. A couple fighting over an indiscernible item in Lewisham, south of the Thames, caused security guards to rush in and knock people over. All over the course of one hour. Londoners will joke about it, until they're caught in it themselves.

The ubiquitous black cabbies were complaining of another fall in business. "I think the government has got the science right," one told me, as he solidly refused to stop talking.

But this is the question we are all asking. The idea of "herd immunity" -- of letting enough people catch the virus to mean our population is immune enough not to support it in the future -- seemed smart. Smart in that very British post-colonial, Brexit way of thinking you are smarter than pretty much all other countries, based on the solid hunch of a few clever people, and some confidence.

Was the sudden lurch Wednesday to school closures on Friday, and possible lockdowns in the city at the weekend, informed purely by new modeling based on fresh data about the virus' appalling severity from Italy? Or was it answering a chorus of criticism that Britain was going too much alone, in keeping the country open as usual?

As early as a week ago, my local store was crammed by 10 a.m., with shoppers walking past aisles of fresh produce, and instead electing to buy all the pasta, soap, bleach and toilet paper, as though guided by a future apocalypse that had yet to stop fish being delivered daily.

My barber said he will stay open "until they tell him to shut." The butcher remarked how "lovely and quiet" the skies were without planes, as he dumped twenty chicken breasts into my bag, before taking a call from a wholesaler whose prices had gone up again. Just near Holloway Road, on Thursday, an entire car's fender and number plate had been left on the side of the road, a harbinger perhaps of how great a chaos one driver felt we were sliding in to.

The UK's free health service NHS -- always the underfunded and adored hero of a country unable to appreciate how much basic medicine costs elsewhere -- has been caught in the headlights. Changing centralized advice has also not helped. A friend said she tried to go for a run on Hampstead Heath -- still crowded on Wednesday -- with a NHS manager friend, but they never got going as the manager was always taking urgent phone calls.

My brief experience of the NHS showed its problems. I'd had a cough since going to Munich, Germany for its security conference in mid-February. Or was it since I climbed into my parents' loft to help clear it out? I can't tell. After one boozy night a fortnight later, I woke up with a very mild fever (37.4 degrees Celsius/99.3 degrees Fahrenheit). I dialed 111 -- the NHS helpline -- and got told I probably didn't have coronavirus, but needed to see a doctor in the next two hours.

The doctor, herself suffering from a heavy cold, checked my vitals and diagnosed heavy man-flu and self-pity, saying I didn't really have a fever (below 38 degrees Celsius) and definitely didn't qualify for a test. She sent me packing. But a week later, the advice had changed and -- had I that fever and new cough now -- neither I, nor my partner, would have left the house for two weeks.

This is where many friends stand, exchanging stories of a tightness of the chest or an unusual bout of flu that didn't seem to go away -- all over the past 6 weeks. We don't know if that means we had "it," or just the flu. It's important to note that "as of 9 a.m. on 18 March 2020, 56,221 people have been tested in the UK, of which 53,595 were confirmed negative and 2,626 positive," the government says. So even those with enough symptoms to be tested have a very low chance of having had coronavirus. Our ignorance should be chilling, but somehow I've filled the blanks with assumptions for comfort.

We've seen how drastic the planning for disaster is. Draft legislation would let police arrest those evading quarantine. Volunteer workers would have their wages protected if they help out the NHS. The army could be called in, certainly to ship supplies to hospitals, perhaps to do more. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to keep the economy afloat, in extraordinary hurry, when the future is something no algorithm can grapple with.

As the weekend and its uncertainty approaches, we're left draining the most we can out of homes that used to be places of transit and rest, and are now where we keep our stores, work, house errant family members, and take deliveries with a new, alien appreciation.

But also, in a city where eye contact a month earlier to some seemed like harassment, strangers are suddenly intimately aware of each other. Sometimes, so they can keep a medically safe distance. Sometimes, to be sure the elderly get where they need to on the crowded sidewalk. And sometimes, simply to smile, and take pleasure in letting the other person in the queue go first.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

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2020-03-20 07:44:13Z
52780675944017

London amid coronavirus: Empty shelves but busy bars - CNN

The changing advice and the lack of widespread testing leave the collective impression here that it is either too late to stop what is happening, or something, inescapable and mammoth, is looming. This densely packed city of over 9 million simply can't make up its mind. Some shelves are empty, but some bars full.

"It looks as though London is now a few weeks ahead" of the rest of the country in the virus spread, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said out of nowhere on Monday. And given that the UK is meant to be a few weeks behind Italy, that gave the impression that collapse was imminent. But the lack of widespread testing here, means we -- and Johnson -- simply don't have the solid data, just the modeling.

On Thursday, a friend's husband out shopping reported raised voices over toilet paper left at a supermarket checkout in the Isle of Dogs, in the East End. A couple fighting over an indiscernible item in Lewisham, south of the Thames, caused security guards to rush in and knock people over. All over the course of one hour. Londoners will joke about it, until they're caught in it themselves.

The ubiquitous black cabbies were complaining of another fall in business. "I think the government has got the science right," one told me, as he solidly refused to stop talking.

But this is the question we are all asking. The idea of "herd immunity" -- of letting enough people catch the virus to mean our population is immune enough not to support it in the future -- seemed smart. Smart in that very British post-colonial, Brexit way of thinking you are smarter than pretty much all other countries, based on the solid hunch of a few clever people, and some confidence.

Was the sudden lurch Wednesday to school closures on Friday, and possible lockdowns in the city at the weekend, informed purely by new modeling based on fresh data about the virus' appalling severity from Italy? Or was it answering a chorus of criticism that Britain was going too much alone, in keeping the country open as usual?

As early as a week ago, my local store was crammed by 10 a.m., with shoppers walking past aisles of fresh produce, and instead electing to buy all the pasta, soap, bleach and toilet paper, as though guided by a future apocalypse that had yet to stop fish being delivered daily.

My barber said he will stay open "until they tell him to shut." The butcher remarked how "lovely and quiet" the skies were without planes, as he dumped twenty chicken breasts into my bag, before taking a call from a wholesaler whose prices had gone up again. Just near Holloway Road, on Thursday, an entire car's fender and number plate had been left on the side of the road, a harbinger perhaps of how great a chaos one driver felt we were sliding in to.

The UK's free health service NHS -- always the underfunded and adored hero of a country unable to appreciate how much basic medicine costs elsewhere -- has been caught in the headlights. Changing centralized advice has also not helped. A friend said she tried to go for a run on Hampstead Heath -- still crowded on Wednesday -- with a NHS manager friend, but they never got going as the manager was always taking urgent phone calls.

My brief experience of the NHS showed its problems. I'd had a cough since going to Munich, Germany for its security conference in mid-February. Or was it since I climbed into my parents' loft to help clear it out? I can't tell. After one boozy night a fortnight later, I woke up with a very mild fever (37.4 degrees Celsius/99.3 degrees Fahrenheit). I dialed 111 -- the NHS helpline -- and got told I probably didn't have coronavirus, but needed to see a doctor in the next two hours.

The doctor, herself suffering from a heavy cold, checked my vitals and diagnosed heavy man-flu and self-pity, saying I didn't really have a fever (below 38 degrees Celsius) and definitely didn't qualify for a test. She sent me packing. But a week later, the advice had changed and -- had I that fever and new cough now -- neither I, nor my partner, would have left the house for two weeks.

This is where many friends stand, exchanging stories of a tightness of the chest or an unusual bout of flu that didn't seem to go away -- all over the past 6 weeks. We don't know if that means we had "it," or just the flu. It's important to note that "as of 9 a.m. on 18 March 2020, 56,221 people have been tested in the UK, of which 53,595 were confirmed negative and 2,626 positive," the government says. So even those with enough symptoms to be tested have a very low chance of having had coronavirus. Our ignorance should be chilling, but somehow I've filled the blanks with assumptions for comfort.

We've seen how drastic the planning for disaster is. Draft legislation would let police arrest those evading quarantine. Volunteer workers would have their wages protected if they help out the NHS. The army could be called in, certainly to ship supplies to hospitals, perhaps to do more. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to keep the economy afloat, in extraordinary hurry, when the future is something no algorithm can grapple with.

As the weekend and its uncertainty approaches, we're left draining the most we can out of homes that used to be places of transit and rest, and are now where we keep our stores, work, house errant family members, and take deliveries with a new, alien appreciation.

But also, in a city where eye contact a month earlier to some seemed like harassment, strangers are suddenly intimately aware of each other. Sometimes, so they can keep a medically safe distance. Sometimes, to be sure the elderly get where they need to on the crowded sidewalk. And sometimes, simply to smile, and take pleasure in letting the other person in the queue go first.

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2020-03-20 07:03:53Z
52780675944017

London Tube stations close but UK government plays down prospect of full lockdown - CNN

Up to 40 stations across London were being closed on Thursday and the night tube service will be suspended at weekends, Transport for London announced.

The order comes as the city's mayor Sadiq Khan urged Londoners not to travel unless it is essential to do so. "Londoners should be avoiding social interaction unless absolutely necessary, and that means they should be avoiding using the transport network unless absolutely necessary."

On Thursday morning, the government's communications team attempted to play down the prospect of a lockdown in the capital, a day after the prime Minister, Boris Johnson, declined to rule out stricter measures for the city.

On Wednesday, multiple government sources told CNN that conservations had taken place in Downing Street discussing measures ranging from shutting down parts of the capital's transport network to restricting travel in and out of the city. Similar reports appeared across the UK media.

On Thursday, the Prime Minister's spokesman said there was "zero prospect" of any restrictions on travel in and out of London and that there were "no plans" to shut down London's transport network. However, London's transport authority had already closed parts of London's Tube network, and the government did not rule out introducing further social distancing measures in the coming days.

London, by far the UK's busiest city, has been the worst-hit part of the country during the coronavirus pandemic. Of the 2,626 confirmed cases in the country, nearly 1,000 have been in London -- but health officials admit that the true number of people infected but not tested is likely far higher.

The Tube closures are intended to allow the city's "critical" workers, including hospital staff, to make essential journeys, Transport for London said.

The measure highlights the severity of the situation in Britain's capital. London's famous subway system -- the oldest in the world -- is used by around 2 million people every day, and has not seen extended mass closures since the the 7/7 terror attacks in 2005 shut down parts of the service for almost a month.

"London will get through these extraordinarily challenging times, and ensuring the capital's critical workers can move around the city will be crucial," Khan said.

Giving evidence to the London assembly on Thursday, Khan said too many Londoners were failing to follow official advice. "We are clearly still in the early phase of this crisis but the spread of the virus is at a more advanced stage in London than in other parts of the country. This means that further measures will need to be introduced at the point at which they will have the biggest effect," he said.

CNN's Luke McGee contributed reporting

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2020-03-19 14:28:00Z
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