COVID-19 deaths in Britain highest in almost a year

British health officials have reported the country’s highest daily COVID-19 death total in almost a year, Reuters reported. 

Health officials said that on Wednesday 534 people died within a 28-day span of testing positive for COVID-19, per the wire service.

The reported deaths are the highest daily total since February 2021, according to Reuters. 

According to data from the British government, 88,085 new virus cases were also recorded on Wednesday, the wire service reported.

This comes as countries around the world continue to deal with a surge of COVID-19 infections driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant. 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologized on Monday after a report on the gatherings he held on government property amid the ongoing pandemic found multiple “failures of leadership and judgment.”

“I want to say sorry. … I understand the anger that people feel. We must look at ourselves in the mirror and we must learn,” Johnson told the United Kingdom’s House of Commons. 

British officials noted that, while Wednesday’s daily number of COVID-19 deaths was the highest in nearly a year, the death toll for the last seven days was slightly down from the previous seven-day period, Reuters noted.