The British government has ordered a large range of public businesses to shut their doors from Friday afternoon and to not reopen indefinitely, in a bid to prevent Britons from socialising in pubs, clubs, and other spaces during the coronavirus outbreak.

Speaking to the nation in a televised press conference Friday afternoon shortly after he ordered a wide range of businesses to shut their doors immediately, the Prime Minister said: “We are taking away the ancient, inalienable right of free-born people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub. And I can understand how people feel about that.”

Following the government’s advice given on Monday for the public to avoid public places and pubs and restaurants, Boris Johnson made the instruction official Friday, ordering cafes, pubs, clubs, restaurants, nightclubs, theatres, cinemas, gyms, and leisure centres to shut immediately.

Boris Johnson said: “We are collectively telling cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants to close tonight as soon as they reasonably can, and not reopen tomorrow… they can continue to provide takeout services.”

The Prime Minister continued: “what we’re doing today is enforcing what we set out in our advice on Monday. I think people have made a huge effort in the last four or five days to comply, we saw big reductions in people attending some pubs, a lot of pubs across the country, to reduce unnecessary social contact. But it was becoming clear to… reduce the unnecessary social gatherings by 75 per cent, which is what the science tells us we need to do… we need now to be making it absolutely clear that we’re going to enforce these closures, that’s the pubs, bars, clubs, and so on.”

The Prime Minister said the government hoped it wouldn’t have to use force to ensure the order was followed, remarking that while the government would “enforce it strictly”, he believed people would “see the imperative of doing what is necessary”. He also implied that pubs that opened from Friday would likely be stripped of their licences.

Invited by a journalist to call out individuals who flouted bans as immoral, the Prime Minister declined, but said:

I don’t want to get into moral name-calling and so on. But I do accept that what we’re doing is extraordinary. We are taking away the ancient, inalienable right of free-born people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub. And I can understand how people feel about that.

But I say to people who do go against the very clear advice that we’re giving and getting from our medical and scientific experts, is you’re not only putting your own life, the lives of your friends and family at risk, you’re endangering the community, and you’re making it more difficult for us to get on and protect the NHS and save lives.

And if you comply, then we will not only save thousands of lives, we will come out of this thing all the faster.

While the closure of pubs and other entertainment venues has already led to staff layoffs and businesses are likely to suffer from being forced to close for weeks or months, the government has announced a raft of support measures to keep businesses afloat, even if they aren’t trading for months, and to extend tax cuts and subsidies to employers and employees alike.

Coronavirus has now killed over 11,100 worldwide in little more than four months. In the United Kingdom, 3,297 cases have been reported and 167 deaths are known.