It has been one of the worst shifts of my entire life. Intense. I’m looking after many more sick patients than I normally look after. It’s just overwhelming, the whole situation

Chloë Walker, senior staff nurse, St George’s Hospital, London, BBC interview, 5 January

I’m really shocked. I feel as if someone thinks it’s fine to put me and people I know at risk. And if goes wrong, it will be because I wasn’t careful enough

Unnamed cleric on the exemption for public worship in the new lockdown, quoted in The Guardian, 6 January

Doubtless necessary, but this second closure of schools is a catastrophe for families in deprived areas. Seeking to narrow the gap must be our first priority when this is behind us

Philip North, Bishop of Burnley, 4 January

When you think about the arc of history in our country, particularly the American South, I think that the two of us are running alongside one another in this defining moment is, itself, a message. You have a Jewish young man, the son of an immigrant, who was mentored by John Lewis; and a pastor, the pastor of Martin Luther King Jnr’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, who grew up in public housing, running alongside each other in this moment. . . I think that this is a representation of the new South

Raphael Warnock, Democrat candidate in Georgia running for the Senate with Jon Ossoff, CNN interview, 3 January

Washington has a choice to make — all of us have a choice to make: will we continue to divide, distract, and dishonour one another, or will we love our neighbours as we love ourselves?

Raphael Warnock, on winning a Senate seat, 6 January

Our lord Jesus, peace be upon him — the first Palestinian self-sacrificing fighter from whom we learned martyrdom-death, and who paid for his mission with his life

Mohammad Shtayyeh, Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, reported in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, 28 December

A new year’s resolution? Can’t improve much on this — to live SIMPLER — happiness is not found in buying more stuff; HUMBLER — I am not the answer to the world’s problems; BOLDER — to speak more often of the one who is

Graham Tomlin, Bishop of Kensington, Twitter, 1 January

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