January the first month of the year 2021 was started under the shadow of the pandemic COVID-19 with mixed feelings of hopes and fears at the same time. Hopes were because of the announcements of several promising anti-COVID vaccines during the months of November and December of the year 2020.
On the other hand, fears were because of the new variant of the COVID-19 spreading in the United Kingdom and in France. This new variant is more contagious and more dangerous which makes it more fearful for governments and people.
However, there were also other important and interesting events that happened in this month. In Europe, the EU and UK reached an agreement about the Brexit case and the agreement came into force on Friday.
In America, the most important news was the transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. He was sworn as the 46th president of the United States on the 20th of January 2021 which was a remarkable event. As a first initiative, the new president brought the United States back to the Paris Climate Agreement after being withdrawn under the administration of Donald Trump.
Besides the political events, there was also important news in the sourcing and logistics fields. Amazon signed a contract of buying 11 aircraft to boost its air freight services and Walmart built an automated picking and packing system which is a revolutionizing event in the logistics field. Meanwhile, ocean frights rates increased as a result of loaded ports around the world.
We discuss all those events and more that occurred during the month of January 2021 with more details in this post.