Covid 19 coronavirus: Photos show empty spaces in NZ and around the world

Day one of lockdown in Tauranga. Photo / Andrew Warner

Auckland's deserted North Western Motorway during the Covid-19 lockdown. Photo / Dean Purcell

It's a scene playing out all over the world. The empty streets, the silent playgrounds and the lone commuter. Rush hour feels more like hush hour.

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From above, life on earth looks different. The patterns of our daily routines are now replaced by the patterns of empty parking lots, rows of school buses sitting idle and the long shadows of solitary figures in the early spring sunshine.

But life, while interrupted, carries on.

Shoppers social distance while waiting in line to get groceries. Mass is held without the masses. And Alice, an elephant at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island, eats her lunch without the usual audience.

"They're used to crowds and having people around and now that that's gone, they sense that's something different," said Ron Patalano, the zoo's deputy director of operations. "You know they can sense it's not the same."

Auckland's deserted High St as the sun sets on day 7 of the Covid-19 lockdown. Photo / Dean Purcell

A deserted Queen St as the sun sets on day 7 of the Covid-19 lockdown. Photo / Dean Purcell

Auckland's deserted North Western Motorway during the Covid-19 lockdown. Photo / Dean Purcell

Empty benches on Oriental Bay in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

A woman walking her dog on Oriental Bay in Wellington during lockdown. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Day one of the coronavirus covid-19 lockdown in Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley

A lone passenger boards a commuter train in Attleboro bound for Boston at rush hour on March 30. Photo / AP

A lone bicyclist peddles though an empty Dewey Square Plaza outside South Station in downtown Boston at rush hour. Photo / AP

Empty tables and chairs sit outside a restaurant in the North End, New York city's Little Italy. Photo / AP

Shoppers wait in line while practising social distancing to enter a supermarket in the US. Photo / AP

School buses parked in a lot on March 30 as schools remain closed because of coronavirus in Providence, Rhode Island. Photo / AP

A man lies on a bench in the empty pedestrian mall of Quincy Market, Boston, a usually popular spot for tourists and shoppers. Photo / AP

The late afternoon sun casts a long shadow of a lone pedestrian walking up the steps of City Hall Plaza, Boston. Photo / AP

The Reverend Peter Gower holds his daily mass before empty pews at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church, in Johnston, Rhode Island. Photo / AP

Northeastern University, Boston, students kick a soccer ball around while social distancing on a field as others run around the track. Photo / AP

Toys lie scattered on an empty playground outside a school closed to stop the spread of coronavirus in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Photo / AP

Marine Parade Napier during lockdown. Photo / Paul Taylor

A highway in Northern Italy is quiet as the country is in lockdown.

Day one of lockdown in Tauranga. Photo / Andrew Warner

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website