Images of deserted streets in Leicester show the stark reality of a city forced into local lockdown.
As the rest of England prepares to open pubs and hairdressers from Saturday in further easing of the measures, from today non-essential shops in Leicester must close all over again.
Schools will also shut their doors from Thursday due to the drastic spike in coronavirus cases that has led to the city being subjected to the UK's first local lockdown.
Photographs this morning show city centre streets, previously bustling, now almost completely empty.
Just a few people head to work - spread out in the lonely streets.
One picture shows a woman stood alone looking up at a sign yet to be taken down that says 'we are open'.
Another sign saying 'great to have you back in Leicester' still stands - but people are now being told to stay at home as much as they can.
Are you affected by the Leicester lockdown? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the law will be changed in the next "day or two" to close all non-essential shops in Leicester.
Mr Hancock told BBC Breakfast on Tuesday that the Government was not making non-essential travel illegal, but said it would if it had to.
He added: "On shops, the non-essential retail, we will be closing them by law and changing the law in the next day or two to put that into effect.
"We are also not releasing the legal measures that lift the lockdown for the rest of the country.
"On travel, we are recommending against travel unless it is essential but we are not putting that in place in law at this stage.
"Of course we will if we have to."
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Breakfast that work was still being done to understand why Leicester had been so badly affected by the outbreak.
When asked about possible causes such as poverty, higher ethnic diversity, language difficulties and higher-density housing Mr Hancock said they were "familiar" to him.
He added: "We are still doing the work to understand exactly why the outbreak has been so bad in Leicester.
"But lots of the reasons that you mentioned just then are familiar to me and people will find them intuitive."
Mr Hancock said that "of course" the Government was looking at similar places but said the outbreak in Leicester was "very significantly worse" than the next worst hit place.
He said that the lockdown in Leicester was being introduced after "targeted action" had not worked.
He added: "We have been monitoring it incredibly closely, we have put in extra testing units, some of the schools in Leicester were closed already.
"We also went into some of the factories and workplaces where there was an outbreak and we put in place measures.
"These sort of much more targeted measures have worked in other outbreaks.
"So we've been taking this highly localised approach but unfortunately that targeted action wasn't working in Leicester and that's why we have taken this much broader measure."
