Patients arrive in ambulances at the Royal London Hospital on 5 January 2021 in London, England. The British prime minister delivered a national television speech on Monday night announcing that England would enter its third exclusion from the covid-19 pandemic. This week, for the seventh day in a row, the UK recorded more than 50,000 new confirmed cases of Covid.
Dan Kitwood | Getty Images News | Getty Images
London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Friday declared a major incident over the rapid spread of the coronavirus in the UK capital.
He had earlier warned that the virus was “out of control” and that the national health service was “overwhelmed”.
“I have declared a major incident in London because the threat this virus poses to our city is a crisis point,” Khan said via Twitter.
“One in every 30 Londoners now has COVID-19. If we do not act immediately now, our NHS could be overwhelmed and more people would die,” he added.
The announcement comes shortly after weekly data until January 2 found that the coronavirus infection rate in London had risen to 1,038 per 100,000 inhabitants. This figure can be compared to an infection rate of 818 per 100,000 inhabitants in the city for the previous week.
By comparison, the national infection rate was 612 per 100,000 for the week ending January 2nd.
The increased pressure on already strained health facilities in the city coincides with the resurgent spread of Covid-19, as the UK contains an extremely contagious variant of the virus.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the third national exclusion for England in an effort to curb the spread of viruses. The measures legally went into effect on Wednesday.
On Thursday, according to official data, the United Kingdom recorded 52,618 new cases of the coronavirus and within 28 days of a positive test for the virus 1,162 deaths.
Major incidents have been previously declared following the fire in Grenfell Tower in June 2017 and the terrorist attacks at Westminster Bridge in March 2017 and London Bridge in November 2019.