You may be aware that @LG_NHS has declared an incident at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in #woolwich. I’d like to assure all residents of Greenwich that our teams at @Royal_Greenwich have been working side by side with our NHS colleagues & continue to do so tonight. I’ve been speaking to colleagues at @LG_NHS today. The hospital is extremely busy but all patients continue to receive the care that they need, including oxygen therapy. The situation continues to be monitored. Today in @Royal_Greenwich our cases have rise to 761/100,000.

Having seen & read a few things online this morning, I just want to make a few points about the way we were treated in #greenwich this week following our ask to schools to change the way we were doing things in the final few days of term. The @guardian reports Patrick Vallance said yesterday that this new strain was detected in September and by 9th December accounted for 62% of all new cases in London.
In #Greenwich we acted on 13th Dec in response to the increasingly challenging circumstances we were facing.

Residents across @Royal_Greenwich will be in #tier4 from midnight - whilst many people will be understandably be upset about losing #christmas celebrations, it is absolutely vital we all work together across #Greenwich to deal with this new and immediate challenge. Some points ⬇️ 1. The rate of infection across #greenwich is climbing incredibly quickly. Tonight, we are at 387/100,000 and our positivity rate is now 12%. @Royal_Greenwich

A lot of tweets and messages coming through. I’ll be joining other leaders on a call later and speaking to the @Royal_Greenwich management team shortly so will be in a better position to advise residents of #Greenwich of what this means for us shorty. Thanks to residents asking about schools and what happened earlier on this week. I’ve double checked with our Director of Public Health & the first we heard of this new variant on Tuesday this week.

Despite our teams & heads not hearing anything all along, it appears that schools will be going online after all. Here in @Royal_Greenwich I took the decision earlier this week to ask schools to change the way we did things here in #Greenwich

bbc.com/news/education… I was deeply disappointed by the actions of @GavinWilliamson & the @educationgovuk who decided it would be better to see us in court rather than cooperate in the best interests of what was happening on the ground here in #Greenwich

Well it’s been a ‘bit’ of a day here in @Royal_Greenwich & I want to be clear with residents about what’s happening with the @TfL negotiation and what it means for you here in #Greenwich - the negotiations are ongoing but here’s what we know so far... @BorisJohnson is demanding that the congestion charge is increased to include the south circular. Any #Greenwich resident driving in it would face a £15 charge. This would affect thousands of our residents and more than 4 million Londoners.