Portrait of the week: Pub staff shortages, a baby called Lilibet and a slap in the face for Macron

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The government pondered delaying the end of coronavirus restrictions on 21 June. But Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, noted that ‘vaccines have broken the chain between Covid-19 infection and high levels of hospitalisations and then mortality’. Of 126 people taken to hospital with the Indian variant of coronavirus (now designated Delta), only three had been doubly vaccinated and two thirds not vaccinated at all. By the beginning of the week, 52.5 per cent of the adult population had received two doses of vaccine; 76.6 per cent the first dose. Vaccinations were offered to anyone aged 25 or more. Of those aged 70 or more, 96.9 per cent of Jews had been doubly vaccinated; 96.2 of Christians; 95.4 of Hindus; 94.3 of Sikhs and 84.7 of Muslims. In the seven days up to the beginning of the week, 61 people had died, bringing the total of deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus) to 127,836. Kate Bingham, who chaired the vaccine taskforce, was made a dame in the Queen’s birthday honours. Thousands scrambled to return from Portugal before a ten-day quarantine was imposed. Pubs and restaurants ran short of staff.

After the England and Wales Cricket Board suspended the bowler Ollie Robinson, Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, tweeted: ‘Ollie Robinson’s tweets were offensive and wrong. They are also a decade old and written by a teenager. The teenager is now a man and has rightly apologised. The ECB has gone over the top by suspending him and should think again.’ The Prime Minister agreed. Sir Kevan Collins resigned as education recovery commissioner for England, saying that the £1.4 billion to help pupils catch up after the pandemic fell ‘far short of what is needed’.