London declares a state of emergency over ‘out of control’ coronavirus

LONDON (Reuters) – London declared a major incident on Friday as hospitals were at risk of being overwhelmed by a highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus that is ‘getting out of control’ across the UK.

Britain has the world’s fifth worst official death toll since COVID-19 at more than 78,000, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has shut down the economy and spread the vaccines faster than his neighbors in an effort to stop the pandemic.

London mayor Sadiq Khan, of the opposition Labor party, said hospital beds in the capital would run out in weeks as the spread of the virus “got out of hand”:

“We are reporting a major incident because the threat this virus poses to our city is at a crisis point.”

London, which rivals Paris for the status of the richest city in Europe, has more than 9 million inhabitants.

The term “major incident” is usually reserved for attacks or serious accidents, especially those that could lead to “serious harm, damage, disruption or risk to human life or well-being, essential services, the environment or national security”.

The latest “major incident” in London was the fire at Grenfell Tower in a high-rise building in 2017, which killed 72 people.

VACCINE FEAR

Khan said there were parts of London where 1 in 20 people had the virus. The pressure on the ambulance service, which now handled up to 9,000 emergency calls a day, meant firefighters were called to drive vehicles and police officers would follow.

The Office for National Statistics estimated that 1.1 million people in England had the coronavirus in the week to January 2, the equivalent of one person in 50.

Britain, the first country to approve vaccines from Pfizer / BioNTech and AstraZeneca, approved the injection of Moderna on Friday, hoping to start administering it this spring. It also agreed to purchase an additional 10 million doses.

However, Transport Minister Grant Shapps said there were concerns that some vaccines may not work well against a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in South Africa.

“This is a major concern for the scientists,” he told LBC radio.

A laboratory study by the American drug company Pfizer, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, indicated that the vaccine it makes, developed by Germany’s BioNTech, works against one major mutation in the new variants found in Britain and South Africa found it.