DOWNING Street has faced questions about why more Cabinet ministers are not wearing face coverings after new figures suggested the majority of Britons are covering up while in public.
Fresh data from the Office for National Statistics shows 52% of adults in the UK had worn a face covering when leaving their home in the final week of June, up from 43% on the week before.
Regardless of whether they had worn a face covering previously, 58% of the 1788 adults quizzed between July 2-5 said they were very or fairly likely to wear one in the next seven days.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon hopeful Scots will follow face covering rules
The level of usage provoked further questions for Number 10 about why so few of the Government's leading figures had been spotted wearing a face covering.
There have been no public sightings of Prime Minister Boris Johnson wearing a face covering while Chancellor Rishi Sunak, following his summer economic statement, was pictured serving food to customers at a Wagamama restaurant in central London without a non-surgical mask.
The Scottish Government has made face coverings mandatory in shops and on public transport, and Nicola Sturgeon has been photographed wearing hers while out and about.
The UK Government's recommendations as part of England's "one metre-plus" guidance are that measures such as wearing a face covering should be taken if people indoors cannot keep two metres away from each other.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister, asked about the lack of ministerial face covering appearances, said: "I don't spend my time with individual ministers but all the ministers abide by the social distancing guidance which is in place."
Sunak has also been pictured greeting people this week by bumping elbows to avoid shaking hands.
During the morning broadcast round, culture minister Caroline Dinenage said she had taken to wearing a face covering "all the time" and said "a lot" of her colleagues were doing the same.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been seen wearing a face covering while visiting a hospital, while Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden also wore one while attending a gallery this week.
The president of the Royal Society, Professor Venki Ramakrishna, this week recommended that everyone should wear a face covering in public to reduce the risk of a second wave of Covid-19 infections.
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