23 March Tough lockdown rules are imposed in the UK banning all but essential travel. The police are given powers to impose fines on anyone flouting the rules. 27 March Downing Street announces that Boris Johnson and the health secretary, Matt Hancock, have tested positive for coronavirus. Soon afterwards Cummings is seen running along Downing Street. His wife, Mary Wakefield, later wrote that Cummings “did rush home to look after me” when she developed symptoms, but she did not specify when this was. Weekend of 28 and 29 March Cummings develops symptoms “over the weekend”, Downing Street has since confirmed. Wakefield wrote that her husband said he felt weird 24 hours after rushing home to her. 31 March Durham Constabulary is told that an individual, understood to be Cummings, had travelled from London to Durham and was present in the city. A spokesman said: “Officers made contact with the owners of that address who confirmed that the individual in question was present and was self-isolating in part of the house. In line with national policing guidance, officers explained to the family the guidelines around self-isolation and reiterated the appropriate advice around essential travel.” 28 March – 6 April Writing about her husband’s condition, Wakefield said: “Dom couldn’t get out of bed. Day in, day out for 10 days he lay doggo with a high fever and spasms.” Cummings himself wrote: “At the end of March and for the first two weeks of April I was ill, so we were both shut in together.” 5 April A witness says they have seen Cummings at the grounds of his parents’ home near Durham with a young child, believed to be his son, at 5.45pm. At about 7.30pm Boris Johnson is admitted to St Thomas’ hospital after his condition worsens. Wakefield wrote: “Just as Dom was beginning to feel better ... Boris was heading in the other direction, into hospital.” Later that evening Scotland’s chief medical officer, Catherine Calderwood, resigned for breaking the lockdown rules by twice visiting her second home. 14 April Cummings is photographed for the first time in Downing Street since recovering from the symptoms of coronavirus. He is clutching a bag containing a carton of soup, a tangerine and a carrot. Wakefield wrote: “After the uncertainty of the bug itself, we emerged from quarantine into the almost comical uncertainty of London lockdown.”