Boarded-up pubs, shopfront closures signs and queues outside pharmacies have become familiar sights across Dundee as Scotland enters day 10 of the coronavirus lockdown.
Footage filmed by The Courier during the one daily form of exercise shows the city centre has become a ghost town, with normally bustling streets devoid of people as residents heed government advice to stay at home and avoid contact with others in order to win the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The windows of some of Dundee’s most popular watering holes – including Trades House, The Old Bank Bar and McDaniel’s – have been covered up with sheets of wood after pubs and bars were forced to close.
A countdown to the end of the lockdown has been scrawled on the front door of The Braes on Perth Road.
Silence has replaced the sound of buskers in the City Square, with only the odd person seen walking on their way to carry out vital shopping or essential work, or as part of a permitted daily exercise.
Some of Dundee’s busiest routes – from Dock Street to Albert Street, Marketgait, Riverside Drive and the Kingsway – have been left free of congestion.
Elsewhere, the normally packed Gallagher Retail Park is almost completely empty, with both bins and parking meters covered up.
On Thursday, Scotland entered day ten of lockdown.
In strict measures to curb the covid-19 infection rate, people have been unable to leave their properties except for important shopping, a daily exercise, to provide medical care, or to travel to and from essential work.
And the lockdown measures could continue in some form for at least 13 weeks, or possibly even longer.
According to the latest Scottish Government data, the number of confirmed covid-19 cases in Tayside is 254 and 96 in the kingdom.
It comes after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon revealed on Wednesday that the country’s covid-19 death toll has soared to 76. The number of confirmed cases in Scotland has risen by 317 to 2,310.
Dundee City Council leader John Alexander said the footage of Dundee showed that people in the city are heeding advice to stay indoors during the pandemic.
He added: “It’s a strange sight to see so many of the city’s main streets empty and inhabited by more pigeons that people.
“There are many eerie videos of cities across Scotland and I think we all look forward to the today that we can get back to some degree of normality once this has passed.
“The positive, of course, is that it means that people are heeding the advice and staying at home or limiting their face-to-fact contact with others. I hope people continue to do so.”
NOTE: Last week Scottish culture secretary Fiona Hyslop granted journalists key worker status.
She said: “We fully expect all public authorities to allow journalists to have the freedom of movement they require to do their important work.
“I have asked my officials to ensure this is communicated to Police Scotland, the chief constable has highlighted that they will take a proportionate response.”
