Portrait of the week: Coronavirus hits cabinet, EasyJet grounded and postman soldiers on

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Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, contracted the coronavirus disease Covid-19, as did Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary. The Prince of Wales had earlier been tested in Scotland and isolated himself with the disease for a week. Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, also isolated himself after suffering symptoms, as did Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief strategist. By Sunday 29 March, 1,228 people in the United Kingdom had died of the disease, compared with a total of 281 a week before. Two days later the total was 1,789. Two more temporary hospitals, in Birmingham and Manchester, in addition to the Nightingale Hospital in the London docks, were being built. Restrictions might last six months. ‘We will not hesitate to go further if that is what the scientific and medical advice tells us we must do,’ the Prime Minister said menacingly in a letter to 30 million households. Testing went on slowly.