World News – UK – London’s streets are deserted after the capital’s mass exodus

The main streets, usually teeming with last-minute Christmas shoppers, were empty after all non-essential stores were ordered to close by midnight yesterday

The streets of

ondon were deserted on Monday after thousands of people fled the capital over the weekend when new Tier 4 rules were introduced

The Underground was almost commuter-free, and millions of Londoners obeyed government orders to work from home

The main streets, usually teeming with last-minute Christmas shoppers, were empty after all non-essential stores were ordered to close from midnight on Sundays

Oxford Street and Regents Street were largely deserted this morning, and most of the shops and restaurants in London’s largest malls were closed during one of the busiest weeks of the year

It comes after a mass exodus of the capital on Saturday evening and Sunday morning when the government banned travel from Tier 4 areas over Christmas and people rushed to lift a 48-hour ban on flights from the UK to Ireland

Trains from Kings Cross to the northeast sold out on Saturday night as people desperately tried to get home to the families for the festive season

One traveler described an “exodus of the Irish” as a crowd queuing at Heathrow to catch the last flight of the evening to Dublin

The Irish government gave the go-ahead for a last-minute flight that has been dubbed a “Christmas Miracle” by one traveler

There were similar scenes in Dover where passengers tried to cross the canal before the UK-French border closed amid concerns about rising Covid-19 cases and a new strain of the virus

France is also one of a number of European countries imposing travel restrictions after a new mutant strain of coronavirus sweeping south-east England

The new variant of the virus may be 70 percent more transmissible, according to early data

Passengers who wanted to travel for Christmas and who have canceled their plans will have their train and bus bookings refunded, the government has announced

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that with the tightening of Covid-19 restrictions across the UK, customers are not being “left out of their pockets” to “do the right thing”

Cash refunds will be made for canceled train and bus bookings in England for the previous Christmas travel window of Jan. until 27 Granted December, said the Ministry of Transport (DfT) with

Tickets are only refundable if purchased after the travel window on March 24th November was announced and before it was announced on 19 December was changed

Tier 4 rules London