Quiz of The Week: 16 - 22 January

Mixed messages about the UK’s vaccination campaign have been emerging from Whitehall this week, with pundits asking whether Boris Johnson has learned a lesson about his tendency to overpromise and underdeliver.

Ministers have moved to downplay expectations about the speedy UK rollout, despite reports that Johnson is privately planning to end the current lockdown in April.

Keeping those plans under wraps may turn out to be prescient, after a study by Imperial College London found “no strong evidence” that high Covid-19 infection rates fell during the first ten days of the latest national lockdown.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The research - published just days after government data suggested that shutdown measures had caused a dip in infections - means Johnson may hold fire from announcing any easing of restrictions for a while longer.

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the pandemic, and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week:

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

In the US, Joe Biden was sworn in as the nation’s 46th president, and kicked off his term in office by immediately signing a raft of executive orders that included recommitting the US to the Paris Climate Agreement and ending the travel ban on Muslim majority countries.

Biden’s arrival in the White House has reportedly triggered a major charm offensive by No. 10, with Boris Johnson aiming to set the UK apart from the EU in the eyes of the new US administration.

The prime minister is also seeking to distance himself from Donald Trump, who used his final hours in the Oval Office to issue a flurry of pardons to high-profile figures including rappers, financiers and his former adviser Steve Bannon.

Elsewhere on the world stage, the detention of poisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on his return to Russia prompted an outpouring of condemnation from Western countries.