World welcomes 2021 in muted celebrations

This New Year’s Eve was celebrated like no other in most of the world, with many bidding farewell to a year they would prefer to forget.

From the South Pacific to New York City, pandemic restrictions on open air gatherings saw people turning to made-for-TV fireworks displays or packing it in early, since they could not toast the end of 2020 in the presence of friends or carousing strangers.

As midnight rolled from Asia to the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the Americas, the New Year’s experience mirrored national responses to the virus itself. Some countries and cities cancelled or scaled back their festivities, while others without active outbreaks carried on like any other year.

Australia was among the first to ring in 2021. In past years, one million people crowded Sydney Harbour to watch fireworks. This time, most watched on television as authorities urged residents to stay home to see the seven minutes of pyrotechnics that lit up the Sydney Harbour Bridge and its surroundings.

Discourage crowds

Melbourne, Australia’s second-most populated city, called off its annual fireworks show to discourage crowds. Officials in London made the same decision. And while the ball was set to drop in New York’s Times Square like always, police fenced off the site synonymous with New Year’s Eve.

Another of the world’s most popular places to be on December 31, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, pressed ahead with its revelry, despite a surge of infections. Images of masked healthcare workers briefly lit up Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, before fireworks exploded in the sky over the building. Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets and squares marked out for social distancing were largely ignored.

Still, the pandemic robbed the night of its free-wheeling spirit. Authorities implemented a raft of anti-virus measures to control rowdy crowds in downtown Dubai. At luxury bars and restaurants, music blared and people drank, but dancing was strictly prohibited.

Restrictions spoiled the fun

For some, the restrictions spoiled the fun.

“People come to Dubai because it’s open, but there are so many rules,” said Bashir Shehu, 50, who was visiting from Nigeria with his family. “We pray that next year we can celebrate with some real freedom.”

South Africans were urged to cancel parties and light candles to honour health workers and people who have died in the COVID-19 pandemic.

In many European countries, authorities warned they were ready to clamp down on revellers breaching public health rules, including nightly curfews in France, Italy, Turkey, Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Greece.

The British government, juggling the twin occasions of New Year’s Eve and the UK’s definitive split from the EU, ran ads imploring the public to “see in the New Year safely at home”. Most of England’s population is under tight restrictions prohibiting the mixing of households and shutting pubs and restaurants.

Many around the world looked toward 2021 with hope, partly because of the arrival of vaccines that offer a chance of beating the pandemic. More than 1.8 million deaths worldwide have been linked to the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.