Worldwide, billions are getting ready for the New Year.
Some parties have had to be cancelled in cities due to increasing infections. However, South Africa has relaxed its curfew and allows the end-of year celebrations to continue.
Australia’s largest city Sydney has also decided to press ahead with a firework display that will light up the city’s harbour, despite one of the world’s fastest-growing caseloads.
The “family fireworks” started the celebrations just three hours before midnight. In a spectacular display, pyrotechnics lit up the Sydney Opera House.
However, just hours before the festivities were to start, Australian health authorities announced a record number of new viruses, including many in Sydney.
AUSTRALIA: The ‘family fireworks’, displayed three hours before midnight every year ahead of the main show at midnight, fill the sky over the Opera House in Sydney
SOUTH KOREA: A woman walks near the decorations for New Year’s Eve celebrations in Seoul with countries preparing to ring in 2022
NEW YORK: The Waterford Crystal Installation is illuminated during a test run at Times Square ahead of the celebrations
INDIA: A kitemaker flies a kite ahead of the New Year celebrations on the outskirts of Amritsar in Punjab state in India
AUSTRALIA : Melbourne’s partygoers turned out despite a spike in Covid cases.
Due to the sudden surge in people, authorities expected far fewer crowds than those who were present during pre-pandemic times, when Sydney saw as many 1 million revelers.
Authorities in New Zealand took precautionary measures by cancelling several fireworks shows, even one popular from Auckland’s Sky Tower, because there isn’t yet any evidence of an omicron community spreading.
Auckland will instead celebrate the New Year with a projection of light onto its tower and other landmarks.
Dubai will host a fireworks spectacle at Burj Khalifa. Ras Al Khaimah in the north will also attempt to smash two world records through a large-scale fireworks display.
KOSOVO – After a difficult year, the decorations in Pristina have already been set up for New Year celebrations
Thailand: At the beginning of each year, devotees were asked to lay in their coffins as part of a ritual of resurrection.
AUSTRALIA: Police watch on as people gather in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, ahead of New Year’s Eve fireworks
Rio celebrations on Copacabana Beach, Brazil will continue in a more relaxed format. However, large numbers of revellers are still anticipated.
You can see the Line Islands, and Kiribati (a Pacific Island Nation), 14 hours before London.
Baker Island, an Atoll South of Hawaii will be the last Territory in 2021.
Due to an increase in the number of cases, Seoul’s annual New Year’s Eve bell-ringing ceremony has been cancelled.
Officials announced that an edited video of the year’s bell-ringing ceremony will be broadcast instead online. The event had attracted thousands. This was the first cancellation of the ceremony since it began in 1953.
South Korean officials also plan to close beaches along the East Coast and other attractions. These tourist areas are often crowded with tourists hoping to see the first sunrise of the new year. South Korea announced Friday that it would continue to enforce strict distancing regulations for two more weeks.
CHINA: Kindergarten children hold Chinese character ‘Fu’, meaning ‘good luck’, to welcome the New Year during a day of muted celebrations
India was home to millions, but many were afraid of the restrictions that would prevent them from celebrating the New Year in their own homes.
In response to an increase in cases of omicron-related violence, authorities have placed restrictions on the use of bars, restaurants, hotels and beaches by keeping revellers out.
Some places like Goa, which is a tourist mecca, or Hyderabad, which is an information technology center, were spared night curfews because of a smaller number of infected people. However, other restrictions remain.
Around 3,000 people were planning to attend the New Year’s Eve concert in Hong Kong featuring celebrities like Mirror and other local stars. This concert is the first major New Year’s Eve event since 2018. Previous events in Hong Kong were cancelled due to political turmoil and the pandemic.
China’s Shanghai government cancelled events, including the annual light show that runs along the Huangpu River and draws thousands of people each year.
Beijing was closed to public celebrations since December, when many temples had been shut down or restricted in access. China’s government is asking people to stay in Beijing if they can, and demanding that travelers who are coming from other countries with infection be tested.
In Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Hangzhou in eastern China, popular temples cancelled their traditional New Year’s Eve luck bell-ringing rituals and requested that the public not attend.
However, Thailand’s authorities allowed New Year’s Eve celebrations and fireworks displays to go on, but with very strict safety precautions.
The goal was to stop the spread of the Omicron variant and to soften the impact on the nation’s struggling tourism industry. New Year’s Eve prayers that are held in Buddhist temples across Thailand will no longer be offered online.