Portrait of the week: Pub staff shortages, a baby called Lilibet and a slap in the face for Macron

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The government pondered delaying the end of coronavirus restrictions on 21 June. But Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, noted that ‘vaccines have broken the chain between Covid-19 infection and high levels of hospitalisations and then mortality’. Of 126 people taken to hospital with the Indian variant of coronavirus (now designated Delta), only three had been doubly vaccinated and two thirds not vaccinated at all. By the beginning of the week, 52.5 per cent of the adult population had received two doses of vaccine; 76.6 per cent the first dose. Vaccinations were offered to anyone aged 25 or more. Of those aged 70 or more, 96.9 per cent of Jews had been doubly vaccinated; 96.2 of Christians; 95.4 of Hindus; 94.3 of Sikhs and 84.7 of Muslims. In the seven days up to the beginning of the week, 61 people had died, bringing the total of deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus) to 127,836.