Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths and said he was “deeply sorry” after the UK toll exceeded 100,000 on nearly every metric.
But faced with questions over how Britain reached one of the world’s worst counts amid the pandemic, the prime minister refused to discuss the reasons it might be so high.
Experts reacted with dismay and sorrow. “This time last year, it would be almost impossible to believe that a wealthy island nation with a universal healthcare system would go on to have one of the highest death tolls from the emerging coronavirus pandemic,” said Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund.
“Yet the UK has now passed the grim milestone of 100,000 coronavirus deaths, with many more likely to follow.”
The archbishops of Canterbury and York called on the public to pause, reflect and pray. In an open letter, Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell said: “100,000 isn’t just an abstract figure. Each number is a person: someone we loved and someone who loved us.”
On 13 January, a Guardian analysis of the most up-to-date death figures confirmed the 100,000 toll for the first time. On Tuesday morning the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the UK had passed that threshold on 7 January, based on death certificates.
Later in the afternoon, the government’s Covid dashboard also passed 100,000 after 1,631 daily deaths were reported within 28 days of a positive test, the second-highest figure ever.
Experts have said that a key measure of the impact of the virus is excess deaths compared with a typical year. These have reached 99,278 in the UK based on death registrations.
At a Downing Street press briefing on Tuesday, Johnson took a sombre approach, saying it was “hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic” of 100,000 deaths.
The prime minister said: “The years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended and, for so many relatives, the missed chance even to say goodbye – I offer my deepest condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one.”
But asked several times by journalists why the UK’s death toll was so high, and what he and the government could have done differently, Johnson declined to tackle the question.
“I think on this day I should just really repeat that I am deeply sorry for every life that has been lost, and of course as I was prime minister I take full responsibility for everything that the government has done,” he said, when asked what had gone wrong with the UK response.
“What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could, and continue to do everything that we can, to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering in what has been a very, very difficult stage, and a very, very difficult crisis for our country, and we will continue to do that.”
Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, described a “very sad day” and told the press conference that it was impossible to say how many deaths might occur overall, but that while infection rates were slowing, fatality numbers could plateau for some time at the current very high levels.
“Unfortunately, we are going to see quite a lot more deaths over the next few weeks,” he said.
There are signs that case rates in England have begun to level off, however, according to the latest infection survey from the ONS, which found that positivity had decreased slightly. However, deaths will continue to increase after cases have subsided.
There were 1,631 deaths reported on Tuesday, according to the government’s daily figures, taking the overall total to 100,162. The government figures also count mentions of Covid-19 on death certificates that were registered by 15 January. By this measure, there have now been 103,602 deaths.
The total death toll from the UK’s statistical agencies, which includes deaths that occurred up to 15 January but were registered up to 23 January, is now 107,907.
Figures from the ONS also show that 1,719 care home residents died from the virus in the week to 15 January – more than doubling the death toll since Christmas.
The Guardian had previously reported that the milestone of 100,000 deaths had been passed on 13 January, by combining figures from the statistical agencies and the government’s daily figures.
Dr David Spiegelhalter, chair of the Winton Centre at Cambridge University, said: “There will be a lot of attention given to deaths with Covid reaching 100,000, but this is based on the figures released each day, which only include people who had a positive test and then died within 28 days.
“The more accurate ONS data show that over 100,000 people in the UK had already died with Covid on their death certificate by 7 January, nearly three weeks ago. This rose to 108,000 by 15 January, and the total now will be nearly 120,000.
“Around 90% of these had Covid as the immediate cause of death, and so perhaps we can say that around 100,000 people in the UK have now died because of Covid. An awful total.”
In care homes, the sharpest rises in deaths were seen in the north-east, which reported a 58% rise in deaths, ONS data showed.
The number of deaths involving Covid in England’s care homes reported to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulator jumped from 1,292 to 1,705 in the week ending 22 January, as rising outbreaks earlier in the month caused by the more transmissible variant led to an increase in fatalities.
The figures bring the UK death toll from Covid in care homes to more than 27,000 when deaths registered in Scotland and Northern Ireland in the same periodare included.
In the week to 22 January, 47% of all deaths in care homes in England involved Covid, up from 41% the week before, data from the CQC showed.
“Today’s figures make grim reading once again and our thoughts go out to everyone who has lost someone to Covid-19,” said Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group. “Hopefully, the figures will soon start to improve, as we always knew there would be a lag before the impact of lockdown and the vaccine started to show. Covid-19 is still taking an awful toll and we cannot afford to become complacent.”