London | Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pleaded with Britons to "stick together" and "defeat this virus", acknowledging the country's lockdown fatigue but saying "there is only one way out of this".

Mr Johnson's bid to get on the front foot followed a week in which he seemed to being losing his grip on the crisis: COVID-19 cases are surging, his backbench MPs threatened mutiny, he was unable to explain his own restrictions, and the shortfall in testing capacity rumbled on.