Leicester shuts up shop

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OVER THE past few months, Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that the government is ready to play “whack a mole”, shutting down any area which sees an outbreak of covid-19. On June 30th Leicester got whacked. As the rest of the country reopened, the East Midlands city, home to 330,000 people, closed down. Schools and most shops have been shut, vulnerable people told to continue shielding. And the rest of the country has been ordered to avoid the city.

Despite Mr Johnson’s fighting talk, the government has tried to avoid such measures. Previous spikes have been stopped with narrower restrictions: closing a hospital in Somerset, two GP surgeries in London and a meat-processing factory in Yorkshire. Yet a surge in testing failed to halt the spread of the virus in Leicester, possibly because the government was unsure exactly where the outbreak sprang from. It has been worst in the east of the city, a place of cramped garment factories and multigenerational residences, home to a large south Asian...