Brighton Station was deserted this morning as the city began a lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Yesterday, prime minister Boris Johnson announced a range of new measures including urging people to work from home and avoid pubs, clubs and theatres.
Anyone with either a new, continuous cough or a fever is now expected to self-isolate for 14 days – along with their whole household.
Usually packed buses were also running with just a handful of passengers.
Scores of neighbourhood groups to help out self-isolators have been springing up on social media, some covering areas such as Seven Dials and Patcham, and others on a street by street basis.
A Facebook group and WhatsApp group set up to coordinate efforts published a spreadsheet with details of many of them here.
Large venues such as Concorde 2, Brighton Dome, The Old Market and the Theatre Royal announced they have suspended performances for the foreseeable future.
And anxiety is running high among the thousands of bar and restaurant staff working in the city as to what the advice will mean for their livelihoods.
The Duke of York’s, at Preston Circus, Duke’s at Komedia, in Gardner Street, and Cineworld, at Brighton Marina, are staying open today and tonight.
But from tomorrow (Wednesday 18 March) they will join the Odeon, in West Street, where an indefinite shutdown is already under way.
Meanwhile, the shelves of large supermarkets continued to be stripped bare by anxious shoppers.
Former councillor Chris Hawtree was told by a member of staff at Tesco in Church Road, Hove, that the food bank bin had been removed as shoppers were raiding it for stockpiling essentials.
