The Week

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Barometer

How much food have we really been stockpiling?

Time out When did British workers start being ‘furloughed’? The word furlough is first recorded in the English language in 1625, believed to be derived from the Dutch verloffe, meaning a leave of absence of a sailor from the navy. It seems to have come back into parlance in Britain thanks to it being used

Letters

Letters: Civilisation will survive coronavirus

Covid questions Sir: I worry that Matt Ridley and others are trying to frighten us about Covid-19 (‘Like nothing we’ve known’, 21 March). The fact is that we do not know how deadly the virus is. We know that it is widespread; but that does not make it deadly. How long-lasting is the danger from