lights have shone around the uk tonight
in memory of all those who have lost
their lives in the past
year buildings were lit up and people
went onto their doorsteps with candles
and torches
for a moment of reflection on this the
first anniversary of national lockdown
the prime minister thanked people for
their courage discipline and patience
over the past 12 months
but admitted there were things he wished
in retrospect the government had done
differently in the early handling of the
pandemic
the day of reflection began with a
minute silence at midday
here's our political editor laura
kunsberg her report contains flashing
images
time to stop
[Music]
to remember that harsh first spring
time to reflect
to contemplate that strange summer
time to pay tribute to lives lost
as autumn turned time to mourn
those absent now
the slow passing of the seasons our
year-long
journey through danger now the disease
still among us
a second spring remembrance
in the cabinet room where so many of the
decisions were taken too
then the trio still at the lecterns when
i asked you to go into
lockdown exactly a year ago it seemed
incredible
that in the 21st century this was the
only way to fight a new
respiratory disease this was unlike
any other struggle in my lifetime
in that our entire population
has been engaged and it's thanks to all
of you
therefore that we can continue on our
road map to freedom
so much of our routine disappeared
indoors the outside world
became a still life we observed and for
more than a hundred thousand families it
won't be the same again
well thank you everyone for coming and i
haven't been all the way around yet
when dean fell ill last march he and his
close family suspected it might be this
new strange disease
he had diabetes but on the 18th of march
he had a sore throat
he was taken to hospital on the 30th of
march his sons weren't worried too much
i'm oliver and i'm 12 years old i'm
william and i'm 15 years old
but on the third of april their dad
passed away
he was about to turn 52. i can't
remember the last time i saw him because
it before because he
was when he was ill he was laying on the
couch and i was up in the room playing
games as normal
we walked out the door and we didn't we
just thought oh we'll be back
in a couple of days we didn't know he
was going under
into a coma or whatever we just we just
thought i'll be back in a couple of days
and obviously
so that was the last time we ever saw
him when he was being wheeled out
as much as sometimes people say
that it heals with time i'm just not
sure that's true at the moment
the virus has affected this family in
other ways too
work dried up for dean's niece and his
sister debbie has had to work
and grieve at home
it's the first time i've really heard
them talk about it
i mean my heart breaks for them as much
as they need us we're there
and as soon as we can actually get
together they're going to get a hug
whether they like it or not
oliver after so much sacrifice
today was marked in many ways simple
spring flowers from the queen to doctors
and nurses at a london hospital
quiet and distant in the commons silent
respect in cardiff
in belfast too and in edinburgh
i know i will never be able to
adequately express the depth of my
gratitude for all the sacrifices that
have been made
by so many but opposition leaders
also wonder about government regrets we
owe
both the nhs staff and those on the
front line and all the families
of those that have died to learn the
lessons of the last
12 months to have an inquiry and to
learn what went wrong to make sure that
we never repeat that
but in number 10 any reflection yet if
there's one thing you wish you'd done
differently in the last year what would
it be there are probably
many things that uh we wish that we'd
known and many things that we wished
that we'd done differently at the time
in
in retrospect because we were fighting a
novel
uh disease the single biggest false
assumption uh that we made it
was about the potential for asymptomatic
transmission
the one thing that i think would have
been really important earlier on is to
have
much better data on what was happening
and that would have required
testing to be up and ready immediately
and it would have required
the ability to get that information
[Music]
there was and is still so much that we
just don't know
song and light tonight around the
country as the skies darkened
symbols of what's been lost and what's
to come
and after a year of pressure behind the
country's doors
behind that door a moment perhaps to
share
maybe to ease the heart and hold the
memory instead
[Music]
sophie feels almost eerie to be standing
here in exactly the same spot when
exactly a year ago we were reporting the
prime minister's
almost unbelievable instruction to the
country to stay at home
so much has gone wrong since then
there's been so much pain for thousands
of families
but one big thing of course has gone
right the vaccine roll out in this
country of course
but in westminster tonight there are
some raised eyebrows over what the prime
minister
said privately to a group of his own mps
tonight
when those in the room tell me that he
said the success of the vaccine program
was down to greed
now number 10 didn't want to comment
about this but i'm told that the prime
minister almost immediately withdrew
those remarks he
repeatedly went on to praise the company
astrazeneca
who made the vaccine repeatedly pointing
out that they haven't been making money
off doing this
and also even saying to mps basically oh
please forget i
said that it was some kind of
misunderstanding
but at the same time just at the moment
when politicians publicly at least on
both sides of the channel
are trying to hold nerves steady on the
vaccine
it's not the kind of comments they're
going to make that any easier
laura koonsburg in westminster thank you
well the uk has seen one of the highest
coronavirus death tolls
in the world but this morning there was
encouraging news from the office for
national statistics
the number of weekly deaths from all
causes has fallen below the five-year
average for the first time since last
august
our health editor hugh pim has been
looking at the numbers and some of the
challenges ahead
the shadow of kovid lingers in every
community
the lives lost and livelihoods
threatened and now a year on there's
increasing understanding of the scale of
the impact
compared to what was first predicted
with the virus proving
far more deadly a health think tank has
calculated that on average those who
died with covid
lost up to 10 years of their lives
that's based on life expectancy
estimates how long they might have lived
in total one and a half million years of
life have been lost in the uk
because of covet by comparison in a bad
winter
250 000 years are lost because of flu
and pneumonia
it is a devastating bombshell that hit
britain
as it hit many other countries our loss
has been much greater
and our loss has been compounded by the
underlying health of the population and
the disparities between different groups
which covert has shown most darkly
but numbers are now falling this line
shows the five-year weekly average for
deaths from all causes
and this shows what's happened since
january last year there was a big spike
above the average in april
mainly because of covid deaths shown in
red then another surge from last autumn
but now uk deaths have fallen back below
the average
for the first time since last summer the
vaccination program
is protecting more people from serious
illness and reducing the risk of dying
with covid
but some who've had the virus are still
carrying a heavy burden
come on tom it's a life
but it is not like the life that i was
living before in fact it's completely
different
tom used to run marathons but covid
stopped him in his tracks
a year ago this month he went down with
the virus thought he was recovering
but then couldn't shake off some
alarming symptoms
it was the probably most frightening
thing i've ever experienced
it felt like my body had been hijacked
by the virus
and i didn't understand what was
happening and no doctor could explain it
to me either
tom has long covered and says he and
many others are still struggling
there's a real lack of recognition of
the scale of the problem
with long curve given that we're just
out of the second wave
it's really likely to grow over the
coming months
and there was a warning today that the
virus wouldn't fade away completely
i think the chances of eradicating this
disease which means getting rid of it
absolutely everywhere
are as close to zero as makes no
difference we've only achieved
eradication of one disease which is
smallpox
with a phenomenally effective vaccine
over a very
a very long period of time
the hope is that coronavirus can be kept
in check with low levels of hospital
cases
but the nhs has a backlog of operations
and procedures
postponed because of covid so the impact
of the virus will be felt for some time
yet
hugh pim bbc news our medical editor
ferguson is with me interesting hearing
the scientists reflecting on what they
wish they had known a year ago and also
what has changed
yes sophie a year ago we didn't know
that one in three people with covid have
no
symptoms and that knowledge has informed
a lot of public policy like the wearing
of face masks
a year ago community testing had been
abandoned there was only capacity to do
10 000 covid tests a day now we can do
over a million
tests a day much easier to keep track of
outbreaks
the game changer has been vaccines not
one but several
highly effective vaccines now we don't
know how long vaccine protection is
going to last it's only 11 months since
the first trial
started in europe they will wane at some
point then there's this issue of virus
mutation
so far it looks like the current
vaccines will protect against
severe disease from the virus variants
but may not stop infection so we may
need booster vaccines in the autumn
but scientists are working on those
what's clear is coronavirus is here to
stay
and we will see outbreaks like we do
with flu but flu doesn't stop society
and now it is vaccination which is the
route out of the pandemic
here in the uk but that also means
immunizing europe and the world
ferguson thank you