Boris Johnson has said he is “deeply sorry” for every life lost to coronavirus as he insisted the Government did “everything we could” to minimise deaths and suffering.

The Prime Minister offered his “deepest condolences” to those whose relatives have died of Covid-19, and pledged to ensure their loved ones are remembered.

His comments came as the Government’s figure for coronavirus deaths passed 100,000 – though separate data published by statistics agencies places the toll at 115,000.

Mr Johnson said: “I think on this day I should just really repeat that I am deeply sorry for every life that has been lost and of course as I was 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, to minimise loss of life and to minimise suffering in what has been a very, very difficult stage… “And a very, very difficult crisis for our country, and we will continue to do that, just as every government that is affected by this crisis around the world is continuing to do the same.”

Referring to the 100,000 deaths, Mr Johnson said it was “hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic: the years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended and for so many relatives the missed chance to even say goodbye”.

He told a Downing Street press conference that “you would exhaust the thesaurus of misery” in trying to describe the figure, adding: “It’s an appalling and tragic loss of life, there’s no question about it.”

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty braced the country for “a lot more deaths over the next few weeks before the effects of the vaccines begin to be felt”.

He said the number of people testing positive for coronavirus was “still at a very high number, but it has been coming down”.

Prof Whitty also cautioned against relaxing restrictions “too early” as he said Office for National Statistics data demonstrates a slower decrease.

The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 in the UK was still an “incredibly high number”, he stressed, and “substantially above the peak in April”.

Prof Whitty said it looked like hospital figures were coming down slightly in areas such as London and the South East and the East of England, but in some areas levels were “still not convincingly reducing”.