Portrait of the week: Covid in cabinet, pingdemic pandemonium and Ben & Jerry’s boycott

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On the eve of the day that most coronavirus restrictions were to be lifted, the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer had to react to having been in close contact with Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, who, despite being doubly vaccinated, had contracted Covid. At first Boris Johnson said that under a pilot scheme he would continue to work at Downing Street. Within hours, during which Labour exploited the idea of privilege, he backtracked, declaring it was ‘far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules’. So he would isolate himself (at Chequers) until 26 July. In a trend called by the press a ‘pingdemic’, enterprises found themselves short of workers who had been ‘pinged’ by the NHS Covid app and advised to isolate (520,194 in the first week of July). Some fully vaccinated people in critical roles (not immediately identified) would be able to continue working even if told to self-isolate, the government intimated uncertainly.