Evidence shows the UK’s first COVID-19 human challenge trials did not begin in January 2021.

• Planning articles in late 2020 said the UK government–funded challenge trials were expected to begin in January 2021, which matches what Jason was predicting. For example, an Irish Times report in September 2020 cited people involved in the project saying the UK studies were expected to begin in January at an hVIVO quarantine clinic in London.(irishtimes.com)
• However, formal ethics approval for the UK COVID-19 human challenge “characterisation study” was only granted on 17 February 2021, with the UK government press release saying the first COVID-19 human challenge study would begin within a month following that approval.(gov.uk)
• Imperial College London and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust report that the first volunteers were actually inoculated with SARS‑CoV‑2 in a controlled setting in early March 2021, and that the first volunteers left quarantine by 25 March 2021. An Open Orphan / hVIVO update the same day likewise states that, following the 17 February ethics approval, the study began earlier in March 2021.(imperial.ac.uk)
• Imperial’s own overview of its human challenge programme summarizes that it ran the world’s first human challenge study for COVID‑19 in February 2021, again confirming a start no earlier than February 2021, not January.(imperial.ac.uk)

Since the first UK human COVID-19 challenge trials actually started around February–March 2021, not January 2021 as Jason predicted, the prediction is incorrect.