Portrait of the week: Coronavirus hits pubs, offices, sport, the FTSE and Mount Everest

Coronavirus

The government asked all people over 70 to cease from social contact for at least 12 weeks in order to avoid catching the coronavirus Covid-19. If anyone had a high temperature or new continuous cough, the whole household should stay in for 14 days. Everyone should work from home if they could and avoid pubs and theatres. All non-urgent operations in England would be postponed from 15 April. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said: ‘Although the measures are extreme, we may well have to go further.’ Earlier, he had said that many families would ‘lose loved ones before their time’ to the disease. At that time, ten people had died and 596 cases had been confirmed, but the number of people infected was estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000 by Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser. Four days later 55 had died, and the next day 69. The government strategy was to ‘squash the sombrero’ shape of peak prevalence as drawn on a graph. The government spoke of ‘herd immunity’, a phrase taken up by its critics. The government hesitated to shut schools, but football matches and other spectator sports were called off. The Foreign Office said British people should not make inessential journeys abroad. Local elections due in May were postponed to 2021. There was some panic-buying and Sainsbury’s introduced rationing, but vegetables seemed immune from the mob.

In America, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to between 0 and 0.25 per cent, less than a fortnight after a previous cut. It was not enough to stop shares falling. After President Donald Trump had banned Europeans from flying to America, the FTSE share index in London had seen a sharp fall of 10 per cent in a day, its worst since 1987.