London Mayor Sadiq Khan has declared London a major incident because the spread of the Covid-19 virus was out of control.
“We are declaring a major incident because the threat this virus poses to our city is at a crisis point.”
Currently, there are parts of London where one in 20 people has the virus. The ambulance service deals with more than 90,000 emergency calls daily with firefighters and police officers to ease the burden.
The Office for National Statistics estimated that 1.1 million people in England had coronavirus in the week to January 2, the equivalent of one person in 50.
For those who are not aware of London’s emergency mechanisms, the designation “major incident” is usually reserved for attacks or grave accidents that involve “serious harm, damage, disruption or risk to human life or welfare, essential services, the environment or national security.”
London’s last “major incident” was the Grenfell Tower fire in a high-rise residential block in 2017, when 72 people died.
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