more than 26 thousand, hospital admissions are going up and staff absences are going up by a massive level so i have taking the decision in consultation with our partners to declare a major incident today. it means coordination arrangements between key public services will now be stepped up and enable london to seek further support from government to address the pressures facing the city. latest government figures show there have been an extra 10,000 confirmed cases of the 0micron variant in the uk, bringing the total to nearly 25,000, but experts say that just the tip of the iceberg, the true number is likely to be significantly higher. there have been 85 people admitted to hospitals in england in total and seven confirmed deaths. currently around 800 patients with covid are being admitted each day in england, but minutes from scientists on the sage committee suggest without further stringent measures very soon we could see a surge