Portrait of the week: Indian variant goes up, Santander goes down and pubs reopen

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The government made noises about having to delay the lifting of coronavirus restrictions on 21 June in some parts on account of the Indian variant, which appeared more transmissible. ‘The race between our vaccine programme and the virus may be about to become a great deal tighter,’ Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said on television. The gap between first and second coronavirus vaccinations would be cut from 12 weeks to eight for over-fifties and the clinically vulnerable. The army was sent to help with testing in Bolton and Blackburn. By the beginning of the week, 37 per cent of the adult population had received both doses of coronavirus vaccination; 60 per cent the first dose. In the seven days up to the beginning of the week, 70 people had died, bringing the total of deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus) to 127,675. More than a million people were admitted to hospital for obesity-related treatment in England in the year before the pandemic, the NHS said.