By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s official death toll in the coronavirus pandemic passed 100,000 on Tuesday, a dreaded milestone reached as the government considered imposing hotel quarantines on international travelers to stop new virus variants reaching the country.
The government said 100,162 people have died in the pandemic after testing positive for the virus, including 1,631 new deaths reported Tuesday.
“it is hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic,” a somber Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. “The years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended and, for so many relatives, the missed chance even to say goodbye.”
Britain is the fifth country in the world to record 100,000 virus-related deaths, after the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, and by far the smallest. The U.S. has recorded more than 400,000 COVID-19 deaths, the world’s highest total, but its population of about 330 million is about five times the size of Britain’s 67 million.
As in other countries, the real toll is likely even higher. U.K. statistics…
