Quiz of The Week: 30 January - 5 February

A week that began with the UK avoiding a vaccine war with the EU has continued with a run of unusually positive news about the battle against Covid-19.

As Britain’s vaccine campaign continues apace, experts are predicting a significant fall in infections in the coming weeks. And in another welcome boost, new data on the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab suggests that a single dose reduces transmission by 67% among recipients and provides an average 76% protection against the coronavirus for up to three months.

Jubilation over the good news was muted, however, in the wake of the death of NHS fundraiser Captain Tom Moore, who died at the age of 100 after contracting Covid.

Subscribe to 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

In non-Covid-related news, an opposition day motion drew attention to the plights of hundreds of thousands of people still living in flats wrapped in flammable cladding, almost four years after the Grenfell Tower fire.

Meanwhile, leaked plans for a “radical rebrand” of Labour prompted criticism from within Keir Starmer’s own ranks.

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?

Israel’s world-leading vaccine rollout has begun to bear fruit, with Ministry of Health figures revealing a drop in infections that has increased speculation about when the rest of the world will feel the benefits of the global jabs rollout.

That may be a sore topic with Ursula von der Leyen though, after the embattled European Commission president triggered fresh anger by blaming her deputy for the bloc’s faltering vaccines procurement scheme.

Another powerful leader who has fallen from grace, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, may have more hope of regaining her high standing on the international stage, amid widespread criticism of a coup that saw the military seize power from her government in Myanmar on Monday.

As the world watches to see what happens next, scientists in the US are being lauded for achieving a world first, after the recipient of a double hand and face transplant broke his silence about the historic surgery.