Coronavirus live news: 90-year-old Briton first to receive Covid vaccine; Hong Kong to impose new restrictions

4 min readDec 8, 2020

A national train tour by Prince William and his wife Kate has received a frosty welcome from leaders in Wales and Scotland, with one Welsh official saying he would rather “no one was having unnecessary visits” during the coronavirus pandemic.

William and Kate arrived in the Welsh capital of Cardiff on Tuesday for the final day of their three-day royal train tour, meant to spread Christmas cheer and thank medical staff and other frontline employees for their hard, dangerous work during the pandemic.

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Britain’s Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge attend a ‘Toast Your Own Marshmallow’ stall during a visit to Cardiff Castle in Cardiff in south Wales Photograph: Jonathan Buckmaster/AFP/Getty Images

But Welsh Health Minister Vaughan Gething said he wasn’t “particularly bothered or interested” when asked on BBC radio if he thought the couple should travel to Wales when the region has been seeing high Covid-19 infections.

https://twitter.com/ufc256streams/
https://twitter.com/ufc256streams/status/1335919881175277571
https://twitter.com/ufc256streams/status/1335920123031347203
https://sites.google.com/view/ufc256livestreamfreefromanywhe
https://sites.google.com/view/ufc256livestreamfreereddit

Gething said Monday that Wales was the only part of the U.K. where infections were not falling at the end of November, and warned that further restrictions may be needed.

On Monday, Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon suggested that William and Kate travelled to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh despite their office being made aware of coronavirus restrictions for those wanting to cross the border.

Royal officials have said the visits were planned in consultation with the Scottish and Welsh governments, and that William and Kate were allowed to travel across the border because they were working.

Wales and Scotland have their own devolved governments and different sets of coronavirus restrictions from England even though they are all part of the U.K. Welsh and Scottish officials have discouraged people from the rest of the U.K. from travelling to their regions without a reasonable excuse in a bid to reduce the virus’s spread.

Britain has Europe’s deadliest outbreak, at over 61,000 reported dead.

Milan’s La Scala opera house staged a three-hour televised medley of arias and ballet on Monday after the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the traditional season opener for the first time since the second world war.

Masked members of the choir and orchestra performed the national anthem in an empty auditorium that in other years would be packed with Italy’s political, business and show business elite for one of the highlights of Milan’s cultural calendar.

Organisers called the show “A riveder le stelle” (“to see the stars again”) in reference to the final phrase in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, signalling hope that the pandemic which has brought Europe’s economy to its knees will soon be overcome.

Italy shut its theatres and concert halls in October to contain a resurgence of the pandemic after the summer and the restrictions are due to stay in place until at least after the Christmas holiday season.

Some performances were live and others pre-recorded. They included the star dancer Roberto Bolle, who performed a ballet solo surrounded only by light beams.

Coronavirus live news: 90-year-old Briton first to receive Covid vaccine; Hong Kong to impose new restrictions

Written by Marty T. Bolinger