the united kingdom is the first european
state to record more than a hundred
thousand deaths
linked to the pandemic and according to
the university of oxford the uk has one
of the highest covid death rates
anywhere in the world prime minister
boris johnson whose handling of the
pandemic has been heavily criticized in
some quarters
said he was deeply sorry for every life
lost and that he took full
responsibility
for everything that the government has
done professor chris witte the uk's
chief medical advisor
said there would be many more deaths in
the coming weeks before the rates
would start to fall as the uk passes
this particular milestone
our health correspondent catherine burns
talks to some of the families who've
lost loved ones
during the pandemic something really
precious has been taken away from me
and it's really hard this is a life
that's gone
and the impact is huge i'm left now with
a young
young family who've got my life is
destroyed everything is
gone
today we're using candles to represent
those who died
one light for every life lost
it started on march the second the first
person to die
within 28 days of testing positive for
coronavirus
the next day there were two more deaths
in less than three weeks the official
death toll was over 450.
you must stay at home the prime minister
announced a national lockdown on march
the 23rd
the next day the official death toll
reached 1 000.
richard nebu died on april the 10th he
was a nurse who worked with elderly
people
his daughter jamie hated not being able
to visit him in hospital
i called him the morning of the day he
passed away and
waved and he said bye jeremy and i said
bye daddy you know speak to you later
i'll call you in the evening
and the evening never came i never
thought he would have come home
something that i've struggled with is
the fact that he he was alone you know
but
i found comfort in the fact that every
day he knew how loved he was
yeah it was the disbelief that this
person
my favorite person in the whole world
wasn't here anymore
you haven't had the opportunity to
grieve because it feels like the whole
world is grieving
by the time richard died the death toll
was more than thirteen thousand
but the first wave had peaked the number
of people dying every day began to fall
slowly and gradually by the start of
june
more than 38 000 people had died
in reality the death toll would have
been higher in the early stages of the
pandemic
the figures only included people who
tested positive
in hospital
ada jackson was 90 and had early signs
of dementia
but families say she was happy strong
and feisty
until covered came into the care home
where she lived
it started to go from one person to
three people to five people
you then started to just think my
goodness they're not gonna be able to
stop this
they had the residents locked in their
room i felt
helpless that solitary confinement in
the room
i wonder if vader felt abandoned at that
point in time
ada died on june the third she hadn't
seen her family since
march these are human beings these are
people
with families they have lives they're
not just
numbers this is a life that's gone and
the impact
is huge a summer continued there was
some semblance of normality
packed beaches foreign holidays people
were encouraged to eat out
to help out every single day though
there were covered deaths
the numbers were much lower on september
the first
three people died but once again that
number
started to climb there were over 700
deaths in september
and more than 5 000 in october
across the uk there were new
restrictions but the death rate stayed
stubbornly high in november
often with more than 400 people dying a
day
dean matthews was 42 years old his wife
says he was a big kid
who lived for his family even when he
had to call out an ambulance she thought
he'd be okay
just said see you later i didn't hug him
i didn't kiss him
just expecting a couple of years in the
hospital sent him a selfie
and then he said there she is my
gorgeous girl and i think that was the
last
that was the last time i really spoke to
him that was it really wasn't
dean died within 18 days of getting a
tickly cough
he had five children the youngest is
just seven
he keeps saying like mom my head can't
understand
like why he's not coming back sort of
thing we're still at the point where we
kind of struggle i think like
why widen around a month before
christmas we were told that we'd be able
to have festive bubbles
but the increase in deaths was still
speeding up
by december the 12th covid had claimed
more than 65
000 lives
including 50 year old medulla she and
her husband
both caught covered at the same time the
day that mom went into the icu
so the day that mom went on a ventilator
um dad was also admitted
my wife is there in the same building uh
you know in another floor
and she was just fighting for her life
and you think of all the things
okay i'm okay you think of all the
things that like you're gonna miss
sarwar recovered but his wife was
critically ill for weeks
i had a diary of every day every day
morning and afternoon
you know everything is just written here
including the day medic said sawa rashik
and his 14 year old brother could come
and say goodbye doctor was very sorry to
say
that the time has now come to an end
that was the last time i saw her
and she was so beautiful she was so
pretty
she was so beautiful the way she was
looking
when she came to my life 31 years back
so that's the most precious memory i
have
by new year's eve the death toll had
reached 76 000
now it's taken just a few more weeks to
get to a hundred thousand
and this is not over yet it's a loss
that should never have happened it
should never have gotten to that scale
it's not just a hundred thousand people
it's a hundred thousand people
families are going to miss them for the
rest of their lives
the echoing voices of just a few of the
families grieving for loved ones
since the pandemic struck in march of
last year
well as i mentioned earlier the prime
minister says that he is deeply sorry
for
every life that has been lost and takes
full responsibility
for everything the government has done
speaking in downing street today he said
government had done everything it could
to minimize the loss of life
our political editor laura koonsberg has
more on the response
a strange and frightening drumbeat first
emerged there have now been four
deaths from chronovirus in the uk then a
horrible and familiar rhythm
759 have five thousand three hundred
sixteen thousand and sixty nine thousand
seven hundred
and twenty eight have now died the
soundtrack of a crisis
nearly a year in the making a terrible
crescendo towards today
i'm sorry to have to tell you that today
the number of deaths recorded from kovid
in the uk has surpassed
a hundred thousand and it's hard to
compute the sorrow
contained in that grim statistic
around a third of those who've fallen
victim to the disease
are among the most vulnerable the most
elderly in care homes cut off from the
outside
twice patients came in to tie ilma's
homes with covered without a test
bringing the worst this thing came in
mercilessly
seven residents died in a week these
people aren't numbers they're they're
family they're you know the people that
we
we look after we care for you know i'm
sorry i get emotional about it but it's
just devastating
what's it been like for you personally
stopping is not an option is it i mean
you know
we're dealing with people's lives here
you do whatever it takes you don't stop
and the cost of the close down to try to
slow the spread of the disease has
broken all the wrong records
anna in essex was first one of millions
put on furlough
then redundant now on the search for a
job
sometimes competing with 200 others
it was frightening i don't you know i
went from hero to zero
overnight this time last year we might
have been sitting
planning what where we were going to go
on holiday now i'm worried about putting
the heating on you know it's
it's a real it's real worrying times
the pandemics absorbed almost all the
government's time and focus but whether
on adequate equipment
testing or lockdown itself ministers
have been accused again and again
of being too slow at the start there's a
strong sense i think that our government
has been
behind the curve at every stage that
there's been if you like
a reluctance to take tough decisions
when they needed
to be taken no government's ever
grappled with a problem
quite like this but hoping for the best
the country's experiences are near the
worst
prime minister near the start the hope
in government was to contain the numbers
to twenty thousand
it's now five times that what went so
wrong i am deeply sorry for every
uh life that has been lost and of course
as uh
as prime minister i take full
responsibility for everything that the
government
has done what i can tell you is that
we truly did everything we could and
continue to do everything that we can
to minimize loss of life
and to minimize suffering in what has
been a very very difficult
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stage and a very very difficult crisis
for our country
the appearances in downing streets the
announcements of the daily toll
may feel like a terrible routine but
right now
in these dark days how the government's
run and how we live
is hardly normal not normal at all
laura kunzberg bbc news westminster
well since the beginning of the pandemic
almost a quarter of a million people in
the uk
have been admitted to hospital with
covid more than 37 000
are in hospital at the moment chief
medical officer for england professor
chris witte has warned that the death
toll
and pressure on hospitals will remain
high for some weeks
before the effects of the vaccine begin
to be felt
our health editor hugh pim visited kings
mill hospital in mansfield
to meet some of the staff and patients
there
every day in intensive care is a
daunting challenge for staff
as they strive to keep patients alive
some of the shifts that i have had over
the topic that i've ever had in
particular one night she thought i had
last week was one of the worst shifts
i've ever had in 21 years of nursing
[Music]
from experience i can tell you that i'm
seeing more sicker patients this time
than i saw
in the first week doctors are trained to
deal with death but nothing like this
umar has had to cope with the savage
impact of kovid
both in his job and at home my parents
have got herbert
my mother-in-law's ic at the moment i've
just lost some very
dear family relatives of covert so
when you see these patients in the
hospital it just gives you that
flashback as well
but you've got to shut that down and
you've got to continue looking after
your patients as the best as you can
it's just so sad you know because
for every person that dies we know
there's a family
that's not being able to do the normal
things that they would do for that loved
one who's died
edith is a hospital chaplain she has to
face up to grief
most days comforting the dying and their
families
but also supporting staff who feel the
losses
intensely whenever you've got lots of
people dying on the board
you know it comes at a huge cost to the
staff
as well as to the families gary has been
a hospital porter for 27 years
it is emotionally draining we move
poorly people
and then we obviously we have to move
deceased
people
diane is a cleaner she's on the covered
front line as much as anyone
i think if you could see the light at
the end of the tunnel and somebody to
say
you know it's going to turn off then
that'd be brilliant but
the soldiering on and we're trying his
very very best to
to work as hard as we possibly can how
do you feel
personally sometimes me upset
i go home sometimes and i could just sit
and cry and
it's just because it's such a you know
it's it's demanding at the moment
there have been more than 400 covid
deaths at the hospital
but here and across the nhs prospects
for patients
are improving the medication and the
care has changed dramatically over the
last year
and whilst the volume of people being
diagnosed
with covid is higher than it was we're
seeing fewer patients dying
and fewer patients going intensive care
people need to know it is not a game
it is frightening
barbara lived with cancer before it went
into retreat
then she was struck by covid she was
keen to get this message across
just wear your mask and wash your hands
that's all it is isn't it it's all
you've got to do
barbara died yesterday her family wanted
us to use her interview
to warn of the serious consequences of
kovid
yes our thanks to mrs roberts's family
for allowing us to
include her in tonight's report