Britain’s economy unexpectedly slowed to a crawl in July as the Delta variant of COVID-19 spread rapidly after lockdown restrictions were eased and as a ‘pingdemic’ kept many workers at home self-isolating. Economic output rose just 0.1% in July, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday, the smallest monthly increase since January when Britain went into a new national lockdown. Economists polled by Reuters had mostly expected month-on-month growth of 0.6% in gross domestic product. Only two of the 26 analysts had expected such a weak reading. Finance minister Rishi Sunak said he was confident that the economy would continue to recover from […]