Dame Esther Rantzen calls for Government to set aside national day of mourning

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Dame Esther Rantzen calls for Government to set aside national day of mourning to remember the 117,000 people who have died with Covid

  • Veteran campaigner Esther Rantzen thinks people will need a break to reflect
  • She also wants a phone number created for those in mourning to contact
  • The total number of Covid deaths in the UK reached 116,908 yesterday 

By Antony Thrower For Mailonline

Published: | Updated:

Dame Esther Rantzen has called on Parliament to create a new bank holiday so Britons can remember those killed by Covid-19.

The 80-year-old presenter says she thinks people will need the day off in the future to reflect on those they lost to the pandemic.

It comes as yesterday’s daily number of 621 deaths brought the UK’s total to 116,908, with 2.3million worldwide.

Dame Esther said in the Times: ‘It would be helpful to create a day during which everybody remembers the people we have lost.’

Dame Esther Rantzen, who got her first jab in December, says people will need time to reflect on those lost to the pandemic

The veteran campaigner has also urged the Department of Health to set up a phone number for those who lost loved ones to the virus.

Several ideas have been put forward for permanent memorials once the crisis has passed.

Last year a petition was launched calling on the Government to honour the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic with an annual day of remembrance and a memorial.

And the Prince of Wales spearheaded a virtual memorial for those whose lives in the pandemic.

Remember Me is an online book of remembrance started by St Paul’s Cathedral, in London.

Dame Esther received her first Covid vaccine in December at the Milford War Memorial Hospital in Lymington, near her New Forest home in Hampshire.

She had spent the last 10 months in isolation away from her family, including her five grandchildren Benji, seven, Xander and Teddy five, and Florence and Romilly, two.

She told the Express when she got her jab: ”I was thrilled when my GP’s surgery rang and I was summoned for my jab.

‘We eighty-year-olds are so privileged to receive the best, the only effective protection against Covid.’