Thousands of staff at some of the City of London’s largest employers were told to remain working from home on Wednesday, with companies forced to abandon plans to refill offices and cancel incentives for returnees after an abrupt U-turn by the UK government.

JPMorgan is among the banks, accounting firms and private equity groups to tell workers to stay away from the office, coming just two days after a September 21 deadline for many of the US bank’s senior staff to report back into its London offices. The move came in response to a host of new curbs unveiled by UK prime minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday amid a surge in coronavirus cases.

Up until last week, the UK prime minister and the City of London Corporation — the governing body for the Square Mile — were pleading with companies to bring office workers back to their desks to help revive city centres.