The emergence of the Omicron variant paralyzed the world’s plan of celebrating the end of the second pandemic year and toasting a new beginning where the coming back to normal was nearer than has ever been.
The highly contagious variant skyrocketed COVID-19 case rates, causing some countries to halt their New Year’s Eve celebrations, while others hesitated to reimpose restrictive measures.
As the US has been among the nations breaking records for new cases this week, New York’s Times Square, the country’s main New year’s eve celebration spot, will have official events scaled back, but crowds of revelers are still expected.
The “Big Apple” city said it would limit the number of people allowed to enter the world-famous square to about 15,000 in-person spectators – far fewer than the many tens of thousands of revelers it hosted before the pandemic.
South Korean authorities in Seoul are showing similar caution, barring spectators from a traditional midnight bell-ringing that will instead be live-streamed on television and using a metaverse platform to allow people to view a virtual-reality version of the ceremony.
Morocco, which is not known for holding any official outdoor celebration, announced a New year’s eve curfew starting from 11:30 pm, to limit the number of celebrating crowds, in restaurants and bars, hoping that the high vaccination rate in the country will avoid an Omicron outbreak.
In Lebanon, the government did not issue any official guidelines towards the New year’s eve celebrations in the country, however, the fear of COVID-19 and the financial crisis will keep many Lebanese at home celebrating with family and close friends, according to the local media.
Meanwhile, Australia’s largest city Sydney has decided to press ahead with a fireworks display that will light up the city’s harbor.
Australia’s conservative government has abandoned a “COVID-zero” policy in favor of “living with COVID”, based on high rates of adult vaccination and mounting evidence that Omicron is less deadly.
In the Brazilian seaside city of Rio, celebrations that usually bring three million people to Copacabana Beach will go ahead, under the Unvaccinated Brazilian President Bolsonaro’s policy.
In South Africa, the first country to report the new variant, a midnight-to-4am curfew was lifted to allow celebrations to proceed.
The year 2021 started with hope as the immunity vaccines were rolled out to about 60% of the world’s population, and ended with daily new COVID cases passing the 1 million mark for the first time since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Ending the pandemic is no longer among the experts’ New Year’s resolutions, instead, they aim to make the year 2022 remembered as a more manageable, less deadly phase of the pandemic.
“This is and will continue to put immense pressure on exhausted health workers, and health systems on the brink of collapse,” said the World Health Organization in a statement.
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