Instead the world locked down. We have lived through the pandemic in Islamabad where I cover Pakistan and Afghanistan for The Telegraph. Engrossed in our daily lives and Pakistan’s own efforts to deal with the pandemic, we watched the coronavirus strike our former London home from nearly 4,000 miles away, via news reports and occasional Zoom get-togethers.

Plans to travel back that Easter were postponed, then travel restrictions and quarantines put paid to any plans to visit that Christmas. Easter and summer 2021 came and went. Christmas 2021 was pencilled in and then postponed at the last minute as the omicron variant exploded. 

It was only last month that we returned to find the London bustle that we had left replaced by an eerie quiet that reminded us of a zombie apocalypse film. The first couple of months of the year can often be a bit glum as everyone hunkers down at home for the long push to Spring, but even accounting for that London felt bleak. High streets were deserted, tube trains and buses nearly empty and shopfronts boarded up.

Google app data showing people’s movements clearly reflect this drop in activity. Mobility has increased since the nadirs of previous lockdowns, but is still way below what it was. The latest UK figures show that visits to shops in general are today still down 12 per cent from before the pandemic. Trips to work are down 25 per cent and traffic through stations is down nearly 30 per cent.