As the bells chimed one o’clock in the City of London on Tuesday, the typical lunchtime exodus from the offices in the capital’s financial district was barely a trickle. A handful of workers left the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street on their lunch breaks, but most of the scattering of people were dressed for a day shopping or sightseeing rather than sitting behind their desks. In normal times, Tuesday would have marked the first day back in the workplace after the Christmas festivities for millions of the nation’s office-based employees. Despite data suggesting that the Omicron Covid-19 variant is less severe than other versions of the virus, coupled with figures indicating that cases in the capital have stabilised, staff at most large offices appeared to be continuing to work from home. The morning rush hour in London remained well below pre-pandemic levels, according to data from Transport for London. Before 10am on Tuesday morning, TfL reported about 770,000 taps on its buses and about 710,000 entry and exits across the tube network, representing significantly fewer passengers than seen when workers returned in January 2020. Then, about 6m daily trips were made by bus, and 4m by tube. Those commuting to the capital have had to wrestle with severely curtailed services, with all Southern trains to and from London Victoria cancelled until 10 January as a result of pandemic-related staffing shortages, and services reduced across the network. Scotrail has cut about 8% (160) of its services from the 2,000 trains it runs normally. Figures from the satnav maker TomTom showed morning rush hour congestion on roads in city centres including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff remained at half the levels seen at in early January 2020, before the UK pandemic, or even lower. Most of the workers who had nipped out at lunchtime in the City to buy a sandwich or to stretch their legs said they had come to the office to do specific tasks, or because they preferred it to working from home. A financial services worker, Sam Lowres, 23, walking back to the office at the end of his lunch break, had been surprised by how quiet the City was. An employee at the Aquis Exchange, Lowres has only been worked in the district for six months since graduating from university last summer. He said he much preferred working from his desk, where he had a better computer set-up. “I live in a small flat. There is more space to work in the office and a separation from home,” he said. “Lots of places are encouraging working from home until at least the end of January.” Walking past the Royal Exchange, Patrick Tomlinson, the head of business continuity and crisis management at the investment bank Rothschild & Co, said he had to complete some work that could only be done in the office, and was taking advantage of a quiet workplace. “I can come in later to avoid peak travel time. The company has a flexible approach,” he said, adding that the firm was monitoring Covid data to decide how to proceed. The solicitors Gorkem Ozsoy and Caryn Toh said their work required them to be in the office at least some of the time, whether meeting clients or preparing for in-person court hearings. “The nature of the job doesn’t allow working from home all the time,” said Ozsoy. “Initially everyone worked from home for the first six months [of the pandemic]. Now everyone has had enough, or wants to return.” Toh added: “We have to prepare court bundles and I usually prefer to be in the office for that.” When the government once again tightened its coronavirus guidance in early December, urging office-based staff in England to work from home where possible, many large corporates decided to take a more flexible approach than earlier in the pandemic. Large office-based businesses including the insurance firms Legal & General and Aviva are among those who have decided to keep their office buildings open. Aviva, which has a 16,000-strong workforce in the UK, said staff who could not work from home for any reason could attend its offices. L&G said it was keeping its offices and cafes open for any of its 7,000 UK employees “who cannot work effectively from home”, including those who need to work in the office for their mental wellbeing. Inside the City’s historic Leadenhall Market, many of the grab-and-go sandwich shops and coffee bars, which in pre-Covid times would have expected queues out of the door most lunchtimes, remained shuttered. Some had stuck handwritten signs in the window, stating they would reopen the following week, while others gave no indication when they would return. A beauty therapist, Sue Durrant, based at the Chequers hair and beauty salon in the covered market, said she had seen just one customer on Tuesday. “It’s the first day back and I’ve got no one else booked in,” she said. “It’s been really quiet and everyone seems to be working from home. It’s really damaging for the City.”