27 Jan
Britain has become the first country in Europe to mark 100,000 deaths of people infected with the coronavirus.
The government reported an accumulated death toll of 100,162 on Tuesday -- that total includes 1,631 new deaths counted on that day.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, "It is hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic." He regretted that so many people missed the chance to even say goodbye to their relatives.
More than 60,000 cases had been confirmed some days earlier this month amid the rapid spread of a new variant of the virus since December.
The number of daily new cases in Britain has been on the decrease, but the numbers of deaths and hospitalizations are still way above the levels seen in the first wave of the pandemic last spring.
England's chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, who was also present at the news conference, expressed his view on Tuesday that it will take some more time before the number of deaths comes down significantly.
nhk
