Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who's handling of the pandemic, has been heavily criticized in some quarters, said he was deeply sorry for every life lost on that he took full responsibility for everything that the government has done.

Professor Chris Witty, the U.

K's chief medical adviser, 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 have 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 the young young family who've gotten old Dad.

My my life is just trying.

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 lock down on March the 23rd.

The next day, the official death toll reached 1000.

Richard Nephew 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 off day.

He passed away and waved and he said by Jamie And I said, Bye, Daddy, You know, speak to you later for you in the evening on.

But the evening never came.

I never thought he would have come home, something that I've struggled with this the fact that he was alone, you know.

But I find comfort in the fact that every day he knew how loved he waas.

Yeah, it was the disbelief that this person, my favorite person in the whole world, wasn't here anymore.

He hasn'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 13,000, 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 family say she was happy, strong and feisty until Covert came into the care home where she lived.

It started to go from one person to three people to five people here, then started Thio.

Just think, My goodness, they're not gonna be able to stop this.

They had the residents locked in the room.

I felt helpless, that solitary confinement in the room.

I wonder if I would have 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 air 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 covert 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, on more than 5000.

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, Celia, I didn't hold him.

I didn't kiss him.

Just expecting a couple of years in hospital sent myself on.

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.

What was it really was Not.

Dean died within 18 days of getting a tickly cough.

He had five Children.

The youngest is just seven, He keeps seeing night, Mom, Me head can understand.

Like why is not coming back sort of thing.

We're still at the point where we're kind of struggle, I think.

Like why ding?

Around a month before Christmas, we were told that we'd be able tohave festive bubbles.

But the increase in deaths was still speeding up.

By December, the 12th cove, it had claimed more than 65,000 lives.

Mom, Birthday, including 50 year old Medulla Sawa.

She and her husband both court covered at the same time the day that Mom went into the I C U.

So the day that moment on a ventilator Dad was also admitted.

My wife is the in the same building, you know, in another floor.

And she was just a fighting for her life.

And you think about things.

Okay?

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 off every day, every day, morning and afternoon.

You know, everything is just written here, including the day medics said Sawa Rash.

Sheikh 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 waas 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 100,000, 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 ah 100,000 people's 100,000 people.

Families are going to miss them for the rest of their lives.

The echoing voices off just a few of the families grieving for loved ones since the pandemic struck in March off 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 has done everything it could to minimize the loss of life.

Our political editor, Laura Kuhns Berg, has more on the response.

A strange and frightening drumbeat first emerged.

There have now been four deaths from coronavirus in the UK than a horrible and familiar rhythm.

759 have 5000, 316,000 and 39,728 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 Cupid in the UK has surpassed 100,000, 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 Yilmaz homes with covert.

Without her test bringing the worst, this thing came in mercilessly.

Seven residents died in a week.

These people are numbers their their family there.

You know the people that way.

Look after we careful, you know, I'm sorry I get emotional about it, but it's just devastating.

What's it been like for you personally stopping non option, is it?

I mean, you know, we're dealing with people's lives here.

You do whatever it takes.

You don't stop on the cost of the closed 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 za rial.

It's a really worrying times.

The pandemics absorbed almost all the government's time and focus.

But whether on adequate equipment testing or locked down 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 bean behind the curve at every stage that there's bean, if you like reluctance to take tough decisions when they needed to be taken.

No governments ever grappled with the problem quite like this, but hoping for the best.

The country's experiences air near the worst prime minister near the start, the hope in government was to contain the numbers to 20,000.

It's now five times that.

What went so wrong?

I am deeply sorry for every life that has been lost and of course has got as Asi 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, uh, to minimize loss of life on to minimize suffering.

And what has bean a very, very difficult, uh stage a very, very difficult crisis for our country theater here Ince's in Downing Street.

The announcements of the daily Tall 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.

It all.

Laura Ginsburg, 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 cove it more than 37,000 are in hospital at the moment, Chief medical officer for England profess Chris Witty has warned that the death toll on the pressure on hospitals will remain high for some weeks before the effects of the vaccine begin to be felt.

Our health editor, Hugh Pym, visited Kingsmill 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 ships that have had the top of that I've ever had in particular one night she had last week, it was one of the real she had ever had in 21 years of nursing.

Yeah, you hear from experience, I can tell you that I'm seeing more sicker patients this time than I saw in the first way.

Doctors are trained to deal with death, but nothing like this.

Umar has had to cope with the savage impact of co vid both in his job and at home.

My parents have got covered.

My mother in laws that I see at the moment have just lost a very dear family relatives off covert.

So when you see these patients in the hospital 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 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 would do for that.

Loved one has 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 loss is intensely.

Whenever you go and lots of people dying on the board, you know it.

It comes a huge cost to the staff as well as to their families.

Gary has Bean, a hospital porter for 27 years.

It is emotionally draining.

We move poorly people and then we obviously were to move deceased people.

Diane is a cleaner.

She's on the co vid frontline as much as anyone.

I think if you could see the light at the end of the tunnel and somebody to say it's gonna turn off, then that'd be brilliant.

Book Soldiering on on we're trying is very, very best, Thio work Azat as we possibly can.

How do you feel personally?

Sometimes may upset groom sometimes, and I could just sit and cry, and it's just because it's such a it's demanding.

At the moment there have been more than 400 co vid deaths at the hospital, but here and across the NHS, prospects for patients are improving.

The medication in the care has changed dramatically over the last year on whilst the volume of people being diagnosed with covert is higher than it.

Waas, we're seeing fewer patients dying on 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.

Brilliant.

Then she was struck by co vid.

She was keen to get this message across.

Just way.

You musk, wash your hands.

That's all it is, just isn't it?

I thought it got Todo Barbara died yesterday.

Her family wanted us to use her interview toe, warn of the serious consequences of co vid.