lesson there we have had confirmation
that the
death toll in the uk from coronavirus
according to the government's
figures has now exceeded uh 100 000 that
very grim milestone that we had been
expecting so let me just give you the
figures in the last 24 hours
uh within 28 days of a positive test
that is 1631 so that brings the total
people who've died to 100
162. our political correspondent nick
earley
joins me now at westminster uh nick as
we say a very grim milestone and
we're going to hear from the prime
minister about this you know very in
just a few minutes time from downing
street
yeah i think that's the main thing boris
johnson will want to address
in the press conference ben we've got
used to these figures haven't we
we put them out every day but this is
another reminder of the human toll
that the past 10 months have pulled
together to get through this
um clearly this is another really
difficult day
or as part of the pandemic
it's only 10 months since sir patrick
valens the chief scientific advisor
was saying that it would be a good
outcome for the uk
to have 20 000 deaths from this virus
we're now at the point where
a hundred thousand people have been
confirmed dead 28 days
or less after having a positive
covered test clearly things have got
considerably worse than they were
when sir patrick valens made that um
grim
comment last march uh you know the the
difference now i suppose
is we know the vaccine is being rolled
out the government
is pleased with the way that is going in
hopes that that gives
light at the end of the tunnel but it is
another dark day in
in the in the pandemic and it's a dark
day that will no doubt
prompt many people to ask you know why
the uk figure is so high in terms of
deaths uh is one of the highest in the
world of course
and there'll be questions once again i
suppose about the government's policy
going right back to last year was it too
slow to lock down
and also an analysis of all the
democrats demographic figures
and statistics in this country whether
there are underlying factors about this
country
underlying factors that mean that death
toll is so high
that's right because these figures do
mean that
when you compare it to the population
the uk has
one of the highest death rates in the
world now
there will be those who turn around and
say look you it's
probably too early to make any firm
comparisons
that different countries record deaths
in
different ways but there's no disputing
the fact that the uk's
death rate is amongst the highest in the
world and i suspect boris johnson will
continue to face
questions over why exactly that's
happened and we know that he's faced
criticism from political opponents
sometimes
for not being decisive enough for not
taking
action as quickly as some people would
have liked to have seen it when it came
to things like
lockdown or of course in the third
lockdown in england now but the
government has faced
questions over the speed at which it
reaches some of those
decisions to tell people not to go out
the house
and i suspect we will hear more of them
over the next few days as well but i
suspect the government will also
want to point to the vaccine rollout and
say
look for all these terrible figures that
we see on a daily basis now that we're
seeing again today with that 100 000
milestone there is a way out of this
pandemic the government
thinks with the vaccine rollout which
for all the grim
figures we're used to also shows some
pretty positive figures you know more
than six and a half million people
in the uk have now received the first
dose of the
uh of one of the vaccines on some days
that figure is reaching
nearly 500 000 people being given
a first dose of the vaccine so the
government will point to that as a
potential way out but
you know there's no disguising these
figures ben they are
tough and they show a pretty
grim point in the pandemic for the uk
indeed nick thank you very much in