Portrait of the week: No. 10 parties, a ten-year drugs strategy and Burmese arrest

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Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, said that the Omicron variant of coronavirus was spreading by community transmission in ‘multiple regions of England’. He gave the number of cases detected as 336 by 6 December, and the next day another 101 were found. Anyone coming from a foreign country would have to pass a coronavirus test within two days of catching a plane to Britain. A newlywed couple who had to pay £2,285 to stay in a quarantine hotel published photos of food such as a slice of quiche covered with sliced carrots in a plastic container. Sainsbury’s asked workers to postpone Christmas parties until the new year. Despite setbacks, more than 20 million booster vaccinations had been given. In the seven days up to the beginning of this week, 827 people had died with coronavirus, bringing the total of deaths (within 28 days of testing positive) to 145,551. (In the previous week, deaths had numbered 858.)