Welsh restaurants ordered to close for lockdown from Christmas Day

Restaurants in Wales will close their doors to dine-in customers from 6pm on Christmas Day as the country enters a national lockdown amid spiralling Covid-19 infection rates.

Pubs and cafés will join restaurant businesses closing, while non-essential shops in Wales will close from the end of trading on 24 December with a 'Level 4' lockdown starting on 28 December following the UK-wide relaxation of rules over Christmas.

"We are seeing levels of coronavirus in some parts of the country that we haven’t experienced at any point before in this pandemic," says Wales first minister Mark Drakeford. "This pandemic is putting our NHS under intense and sustained strain."

"There are more than 2,100 people with coronavirus symptoms in our hospitals – equivalent to five general hospitals fully occupied by people with coronavirus.

"This has been such a long and difficult year. We need to take this action to save lives and control the spread of this awful virus."

Restaurants in the country were already operating under restrictions, unable to serve alcohol and closing at 6pm each day