After 19 months spent attempting to ward off Covid-19 while safeguarding jobs and businesses, the U.K. is heading into winter with a growing problem: The coronavirus is spreading rapidly, just as the economy starts going in the opposite direction . U.K. cases are accelerating faster than in other western European nations, while deaths have jumped to their highest since March. Government ministers are having to deny they are planning for a new lockdown. At the same time, economic growth is slowing , inflation is running high , the Bank of England is expected to hike rates soon and households are facing a cost-of-living crisis. It’s a contrast to successive waves of infection earlier in the pandemic, when tighter Covid curbs hurt the economy and looser measures helped it rebound . But most restrictions were removed in July, and key fiscal and monetary support programs — including the furlough scheme […]