A doctor broke down in tears on Good Morning Britain as she revealed that her father fatally contracted Covid the same day that it is believed the Downing Street Christmas party occurred.
Last week, the Mirror revealed that No 10 staff had been accused of breaking Covid rules by attending parties in the run-up to last Christmas.
A video then emerged of senior staff joking about the Christmas party just four days after it happened.
Officials can be heard laughing about "cheese and wine" as Boris Johnson's former spokeswoman Allegra Stratton cracked jokes about a "business meeting" in which there was “definitely no social distancing.”
Joining hosts Susanna Reid and Adil, Dr Saleyha Ahsan said that she would "try to speak about the video without bursting into tears".
"On the day that they were breaking into their secret Santas was the day that my dad became unwell with Covid," she said. "On the 22nd December, when Allegra Stratton gave that press conference and laughed her way through it, the joke about social distancing, was the day that my dad's CPAP mask went on and we had to make difficult decisions as to whether he could actually take the mask off to take sips of water.
"It was possibly the most horrific period of my life, bearing in mind the year before that, the months before that, I had been working as a critical care doctor and I thank Allegra Stratton and her team for bringing back all those memories.
"So I've spent all of last night having flashbacks. Any sort of feeling I had has been thrown away."
As she appeared tearful, an emotional Susanna said: "I'm so sorry."
Earlier on in the programme, Susanna blasted Tory MPs and No 10 staff "gaslighting" over the Christmas party.
"When we say we're pretty sure a party went ahead, that's because we have reports from the Mirror that it went ahead," Susanna said. "We have inside sources who say a party went ahead and we have had the Prime Minister and other Cabinet ministers not denying that a party went ahead.
"However, No 10's official spokesperson says there was no party. That video suggests that they were expecting questions about a party that went ahead.
"This feels like gaslighting where we know something happened, but we are constantly having the waters muddied. The spokesperson there says a year ago, what's the right answer? Well, the right answer is that you say what happened!"
*Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV
