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Pubs in England would be allowed to reopen for table service from 4 July, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told the Commons, his words being met by an exclamation from one MP of ‘Hallelujah’. But drinkers would be expected to supply names and addresses before being served. Restaurants, museums, galleries, cinemas, hotels and hairdressers could also reopen, but not bowling alleys. Churches could reopen for services, including weddings, with a limit of 30 people, provided no one sang. The ‘two-metre rule’ was reduced by way of advice to one metre, to be combined with mitigating measures, such as facing in different directions. The government discontinued its daily televised briefings.
At the beginning of the week, Sunday 21 June, total deaths from Covid-19 stood at 42,589; a week earlier the total had been 41,662. After ditching its own contact-tracing technology, tested on the Isle of Wight, the government said that an Apple-Google model could be ready in the autumn, though it might not include contact-tracing functionality. People from two households at a time were to be allowed to meet indoors. Extremely vulnerable people in England were told they need not shield themselves after 1 August; but unless they had to stay at home, they would no longer be eligible for sick pay.
Public debt rose to £1,950 billion, greater than GDP for the first time since 1963. In May a third of total sales were made online. Intu, the company that owns 20 shopping centres including Lakeside in Essex, the Trafford Centre in Manchester and one in the middle of Watford, teetered on the brink of administration. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, considered cutting VAT. Three men were stabbed to death in a park in Reading on Saturday evening; police called it a terrorist incident and questioned Khairi Saadallah, aged 25, who came to Britain from Libya in 2012 and had been brought to the attention of MI5 last year.
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