Portrait of the week: Second wave fears, cash for cyclists and a cat catches Covid

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At a few hours’ notice, the government removed Spain from the list of countries from which it was possible to enter Britain without spending two weeks in quarantine. Among those caught by the regulations was Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, whose department regulates so-called ‘travel corridors’. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said: ‘In Europe, amongst some of our European friends, I’m afraid you are starting to see in some places the signs of a second wave of the pandemic.’ Oldham followed neighbouring Rochdale in imposing stricter regulations, prohibiting social visits to houses. A Siamese in southern England was found to be the first cat in Britain to have been infected with coronavirus.

On 26 July, total deaths from Covid-19 stood at 45,738, with a seven-day average of 67 deaths a day. In Scotland no deaths from Covid-19 were reported for ten days running. The coronavirus furlough scheme was being used by 9.5 million people, costing the Treasury £31.7 billion. Westminster Abbey, having recently raised £22 million for a new museum in the triforium, decided to sack one in five of its staff because coronavirus had closed the church to tourists who would have paid £12 million to see it. England won the third Test against West Indies at Old Trafford, with Stuart Broad securing his 500th Test wicket.

In a new campaign against obesity, the government decided to make manufacturers put the number of calories on bottles of wine, beer and spirits, to ban buy-one-get-one-free offers on high fat, salt and sugar products, and to ban their broadcast advertisement before 9 p.m. Other wheezes included £50 vouchers for bicycle repairs and the provision of bicycles by the NHS. Some 125 British organisations, including the National Trust and the University of Newcastle, were found to have been affected by the hacking in May of Blackbaud, a cloud computing provider, which had paid a ransom to its hackers.