Portrait of the week: Masks to be dropped, John Lewis builds houses and Russia lays claim to champagne

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Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said that if a review of coronavirus restrictions on 12 July allowed, then on 19 July he expected an end in England to compulsory masks (except in hospitals), working from home, the ban on ordering drinks at the bar, on nightclubs and on singing in church. ‘If we don’t go ahead now,’ he said, ‘then the question is, when would we go ahead?’ Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, told the Commons: ‘If you’re on public transport, let’s say a very crowded Tube, I think it would be sensible to wear a mask — not least for respect for others.’ In separate provisions, the system of sending home all members of a school bubble if one tested positive would be discontinued. Anyone fully vaccinated who came into contact with someone who tested positive would from 16 August no longer have to self-isolate; in the meantime employers feared large numbers would be sent home. Scotland plodded on till 9 August with its restrictions and kept its masks on.

In the seven days up to the beginning of the week, 118 people had died with coronavirus, bringing the total of deaths (within 28 days of testing positive) to 128,207. By the beginning of the week, 63.4 per cent of the adult population had received two doses of vaccine; 85.7 per cent a first dose. Although the daily number of cases detected by tests rose from 18,270 to 24,885 in a week, the number remaining in hospital only rose from 1,507 to 1,905. The NHS was awarded the George Cross and received a handwritten message from the Queen for its 73rd anniversary, marked by a service at St Paul’s, which the Duchess of Cambridge could not attend because she was self-isolating.