Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered his “sincere condolences” to people who have lost loved ones to the pandemic on the one-year anniversary of lockdown.
“The last 12 months has taken a huge on us all, and I offer my sincere condolences to those who have lost loved ones,” Johnson wrote in a statement shared on social media.
“Today, the anniversary of the first lockdown, is an opportunity to reflect on the past year — one of the most difficult in our country’s history,” he added.
“We should also remember the great spirit shown by our nation over this past year. We have all played our party, whether it’s working on the front lines as a nurse or carer, working on vaccine development and supply, helping to get that jab into arms, home schooling your children, or just by staying at home to prevent the spread of the virus,” he insisted.
“It’s because of every person in this country that lives have been saved, our NHS was protected, and we have started on our cautious road to easing restrictions once and for all.”
Johnson will offer a lengthier address to the nation at 5 p.m. on what is being treated as a “day of reflection”, with national landmarks such as the London Eye and the Wallace Monument illuminated as a gesture of remembrance.
Britain can boast one of the most extensive vaccine rollout programmes in the world, certainly among larger nations, and defied establishment expectations by vastly outperforming the struggling European Union when it opted out of joint procurement with the bloc.
However, the United Kingdom does still have one of the highest official death tolls in the world, despite some of the harshest lockdown restrictions in the West.
Johnson’s government and technocrat advisers were extremely reluctant to impose travel bans on Covid hotspots like China or even bring in screening or quarantine requirements for travellers during the early and even relatively late stages of the pandemic, and the much-vaunted National Health Service (NHS) sent thousands of old people infected with the virus back into care homes.
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