Warning of ambulance delays in WA with dozens of staff absent

An emergency alert has been issued in Western Australia, with residents told to expect delays when calling triple zero.

The second warning of its kind in a week from St John Ambulance was due to a spike in emergency calls and a 20 per cent crew shortage.

There were 30 paramedics on COVID-19 leave on Sunday, after a week in which daily infections topped 15,000 multiple times.

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On Sunday, there were 12,399 cases and four historic deaths related to COVID-19.

At one point almost every ambulance was on a job.

The warning came as a quarter of ambulances were waiting, or "ramped" outside hospitals while calls skyrocketed.

Doctors in the state are renewing their calls for the mask mandate to return, to ease some of the pressure.