The list of British orders and honors traditionally published on New Year's Eve is, as expected, under the sign of the corona virus.

One in five of the 1122 new dignitaries will also be honored for services in connection with fighting pandemics, especially the chief scientific and medical advisers to the government, Patrick Valance and Chris Witty.

You are accepted as a knight in the high-ranking Bad -Orden (Order of the Bath), which derives its name from the purifying bath that was part of the medieval ceremonial of the knight's electorate.

Gina Thomas

Features correspondent based in London.

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In addition to honoring the fighters on the front against Covid-19, the list offers a temporal image of the country as the Johnson government wants to convey with its mission to reduce economic and social imbalances.

The parity between the sexes is missed with a proportion of women of 47.9 percent, but the ethnic diversity is higher than ever before.

15.1 percent of those honored belong to ethnic minorities;

the LGBT community is represented with 3.5 percent;

a quarter of the winners have a low socio-economic background.

Danial Craig receives the Bond rank

Representative for this in the cultural field are the aged actors June Brown and Ken Barlow, who have been awarded the rank of Officer of the Empire Order for their roles in "EastEnders" and "Coronation Street", the soap operas about the English working class. Trevor Phillips, a prominent advocate of racial equality and critic of political correctness, is knighted for services to human rights. The film directors John Boorman and Horace Ové, as well as Alistair Spaldung, under whose direction the Sadler's Wells Theater has developed into an internationally renowned dance house, and Peter Murray, founder of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, are among the new Empire Knights. Diane Lees, Director of the Imperial War Museum,has been made Dame Commander of the British Empire, the female equivalent of the knight, as have actresses Vanessa Redgrave and Joanna Lumley ("Absolutely Fabulous"). John Gilhooly, longtime director of Wigmore Hall, who kept music going in lockdown, becomes Commander of the Empire.

The honor of Daniel Craig as Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George adds a touch of humor to the cocktail of dignities. The order is reserved for persons with merits in formal or informal foreign service. James Bond is given the same rank in Ian Fleming's 1953 novel "From Moscow with Love". The Nobel Prize-winning biologist Paul Nurse is appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honor, which is limited to 65 large figures.

Tony Blair had to wait fourteen years after leaving the office of Prime Minister to be accepted into the Order of the Garter, an honor which the monarch personally bestows.

Petitions protesting against honoring a “war criminal” had more than 160,000 signatures 24 hours after the list was published.

With the former Labor Minister Baroness Amos, the Order of the Garter gets its first black member.

The simultaneous admission of the Duchess of Cornwell is taken as a sign that the wife of the heir to the throne will one day stand by his side as queen instead of just as wife.

The Queen has also honored her head chef, the plumber of the crown estate and a carpenter at Sandringham.