staff absence is due covid—19 at the moment, but they say in spite of the challenges, essential services are fully open. now, of course, it is a bank holiday here today, so it is fairly quiet around the hospital. most of the normal outpatient services would not be functioning as they normally would be on a working week day. a&e is open of course. ambulances are coming and going, but that seems to be effectively running as it would do normally at the moment. albeit with long waiting times that most hospitals have. now it is not a unique incident from what we can tell. about half a dozen other trusts have declared similar critical incidents. they can only last for sometimes just a few days. the situation may improve, but you have a situation here at the moment where staff absences are rising and so are the number of cases coming in with covid. that was danny savage. protests have been continuing against lockdown measures and vaccinations in the netherlands. in amsterdam, at least 30