London Ambulance Service: 'We take thousands of calls every day - it's tough' By Thomas Mackintosh image copyrightAFP image captionLAS received almost 200,000 calls in December - up 50,000 on November, when London was in the second national lockdown Last week London exceeded the grim milestone of 10,000 deaths linked to Covid-19. Thousands of people are critically ill in hospital, and as many as 5% of Londoners are thought to have the virus in some parts of the city. As coronavirus continues to circulate silently around the capital, staff at the London Ambulance Service (LAS) are under immense pressure. The service is currently taking up to 8,500 calls a day, compared with a pre-Covid figure of 5,000 to 6,000, according to its chief executive Garrett Emmerson.