MP apologises for saying the media have a 'sick obsession' with the total deaths

The Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, Jonathan Gullis, has apologised after he claimed that the UK media has a "sick obsession" with the coronavirus death toll.

During an exchange with the LBC Radio host James O'Brien, Gullis claimed that the media has developed an obsession with the number of people that have died from coronavirus and that comparisons were being "lazily" made to the death tolls in other countries.

This came after an initial response from Gullis to O'Brien who claimed that the presenter had an "agenda" and the government's response didn't conform to that.

Gullis's tweet about the "sick obsession" soon gained a lot of attention and outrage, with Piers Morgan calling it an "absolute disgrace".

Gullis has since apologised for his "poor choice of words", explaining that "the media haven’t explored the complexity of wide-ranging factors" when it comes to compiling numbers of this nature. He also expressed his sympathies to those that have lost loved ones during the pandemic and healthcare and key workers on the frontline.

The 30-year-old was elected as the MP for Stoke-on-Trent North in the 2019 general election, unseating Labour's Ruth Smeeth.

At the time of writing it has been confirmed that 26,097 people have died from coronavirus in the UK and that at least 165,000 people have been infected by the illness.

This comes after the government included the number of fatalities that have occurred in care homes for the first time.