The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Queen gets vaccinated, Trump supporters riot and gorillas catch Covid

issue 16 January 2021

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The government, in the face of overwhelming numbers of people with Covid-19 being admitted to hospital, told everyone to stay at home and threatened them with unspecified harsher measures. The law brought into force on 6 January allowed any amount of exercise and visits to food shops, dry cleaners, takeaway restaurants, banks, pet-food suppliers, off licences, public lavatories, garden centres, bicycle shops and libraries (for collection of books ordered in advance) or anywhere for the purpose of picketing. The Speaker asked MPs to wear masks in the House, except when speaking. Two women were stopped by Derbyshire police as they walked in the country, told that the cups of peppermint tea they carried were ‘classed as a picnic’, and had to pay a £200 penalty each; five days later police rescinded the penalties.

At the beginning of the week, Sunday 10 January, total deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for the coronavirus) had stood at 80,868, including 6,298 in the past week.

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