British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday that Britain will "learn the lessons" as the country's coronavirus-related deaths passed the grim landmark of 100,000.
Britain will "learn the lessons and prepare" for any future pandemics, Johnson said at a virtual press conference at Downing Street.
The number of people who died within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test has reached 100,162 after another 1,631 were confirmed, according to official figures released Tuesday.
Britain is the first European nation and the fifth country in the world to pass the milestone of 100,000 deaths, following the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico.
Johnson offered his "deepest condolences" and it is "hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic".
The prime minister pledged that the country will come together after the pandemic to remember the lost ones.
"We make this pledge that when we've come through this crisis, we will come together as a nation to remember everyone we lost and to honour the selfless heroism of all those on the front line who gave their lives to save others," he said. "We will."
Joining Johnson for the press briefing, Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, said the number of people testing positive for coronavirus in Britain remains very high.
"It's still at a high number but it's coming down... we need to be careful we do not relax too early," he said.
"It's flattened off, (but) it's substantially above the peak in April," he said, noting that there are 35,000 people in hospital in Britain.
"The number of deaths has flattened out on a very high level...We need to be realistic that that number will come down relatively slowly over the next two weeks," he said.
Another 20,089 people in Britain have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 3,689,746, according to official figures.
England is currently under the third national lockdown since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country. Similar restriction measures are also in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
More than 6.8 million people in Britain have received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, the latest official figures showed.
Britain is on track to deliver a first dose to 15 million of the most vulnerable by mid-February and to offer all adults their first dose by autumn, according to British vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi.
To bring life back to normal, countries such as Britain, China, Germany, Russia and the United States have been racing against time to roll out coronavirus vaccines.
