UK The Independent

More than 100,000 people in the UK have now died from Covid-19 – a heart-wrenching, incomprehensible figure that many experts and scientists believe to be rooted in the failures of a “reckless" government that has overseen one of the largest “avoidable” losses of lives in generations. Few ever envisioned the UK reaching such a grim milestone, yet nearly 12 months on from the beginning of the pandemic – and despite countless opportunities and warnings to take corrective action – the country stands alone with the highest daily death rate in the world. More than a quarter of all UK deaths have been reported in the last month alone, the culmination of the government’s failed tier system, pre-Christmas mixing and the emergence of the new coronavirus variant, critics say. Against this backdrop, the NHS has found itself overwhelmed by a surge of hospitalisations previously unseen throughout the pandemic. But the reality is that such statistics barely scratch the surface of suffering that has paralysed the UK over the course of the crisis. Each lost life was a mother, a father, a child, a friend, a neighbour, a colleague – someone known and loved by another.