国际英语新闻:No Nobel Awarding Ceremony in 2020 due to pandemic: report

STOCKHOLM, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- There will be no traditional Nobel Awarding Ceremony in Stockholm this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Swedish media reported on Tuesday.

The Nobel Foundation's Executive Director Lars Heikensten was quoted by the Swedish Television (SVT) on Tuesday as saying that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there would be no traditional awarding ceremony of the Nobel Prizes in the Concert Hall in Stockholm this year as the Foundation had decided to cancel the award ceremony with everyone gathered on site. The prize winners will instead participate from their home countries.

It will be a televised award ceremony where the presentations of the awards are interspersed with elements from the award winners' home countries when they receive medals and diplomas there. The broadcast will probably take place at the City Hall in Stockholm, SVT reported.

"We tie everything together in a joint broadcast, with a studio in City Hall. Each prize winner can be at the Swedish embassy or at their university," Heikensten was quoted as saying, adding that such decision was already made this spring, but the Foundation "did not want to commit to a decision too early."

Earlier in July, the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter quoted Heikensten as saying that the Foundation decided to cancel this year's Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, one of the major events held also on Dec. 10, after the traditional Awarding Ceremony.

Every year in October, the Nobel prizes are announced and in December, a series of activities are held with a climax on Dec. 10, the Nobel Day, when five Nobel Prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Economics) are awarded in the Concert Hall in Stockholm, followed by the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm City Hall.