A nurse gives reassurance to Haydar Sal, a patient with Covid 19 in the Intensive Care Unit at Homerton Hospital. Sal was the first patient in the second wave to leave the Intensive Care Unit alive. “The worst thing was seeing the people around me die,” he said, “I saw a lot of people beg every kind of God they could think of to survive.”

A deserted Oxford Circus during a Covid lockdown.

18th March 2020. Five days before the Government finally announces a nationwide lockdown, the streets of the City of London are deserted during rush hour as people take things into their own hands.

A woman prays at the door of Westminster Cathedral in central London on Good Friday. All places of worship were closed as part of measures to prevent the spread of Covid 19.

A rough sleeper shielded by an umbrella in a doorway of the Prince Edward Theatre in Soho closed due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

Intensive Care Unit Homerton Hospital. At the height of the second wave in January 2021 the Homerton hospital had sometimes in excess of 30 Covid patients a day needing intensive care. The purpose built ICU at the Homerton only takes 10 patients, so another ward had to be made into a temporary ICU, it was known as the ‘Escalation’ ward and had room for 23 patients.

Doctors and nurses in the Intensive Care Unit at Homerton Hospital tend to a Covid 19 patient whose condition has suddenly deteriorated.

Mohammed Malik, aged 53, is moved out of the Intensive Care Unit after recovering from Covid 19. “Those nurses and doctors are just completely blessed. They go far beyond what’s required of them. They saved my life.” he said.

Intensive Care Unit staff break for lunch.

An anti Lockdown protest.

Socially distanced evening prayers at a Mosque in Barking, east London.

A volunteer driver working for Supporting Humanity, a bereavement charity waits with the coffin of a Covid 19 victim for the arrival of his family to bury him at a cemetery in East London.

Volunteers from Supporting Humanity, a bereavement charity, work into the night putting the finishing touches to the grave of a Covid 19 victim after his burial, as well as digging new graves in preparation for the next day’s Covid related burials at an Islamic cemetery in east London.