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From the Sydney Harbor Bridge to the Acropolis and Copacabana Beach, fireworks erupted in the skies over eerily deserted places as the world ushered in the New Year with silent celebrations and bid farewell to a 2020 plagued by pandemics.
After a grueling year in which at least 1.7 million people died from COVID-19, new waves of infection triggered new closures and forced would-be revelers to extend their 2020 tradition of watching events from the couch.
The anxious opening seconds of 2021 fell on the Pacific nations of Kiribati and Samoa from 1000 GMT. The uninhabited Howland and Baker Islands will be the last to capsize towards the New Year.
In New Zealand, which has earned praise for its handling of the coronavirus, large crowds gathered in Auckland for a fireworks display.
In Sydney, Australia’s largest city, fireworks lit up the glittering harbor with a dazzling display, but few onlookers saw in person.
“I think everyone looks to 2021 as a new beginning and a new beginning,” Karen Roberts, one of the lucky few who were allowed to pass through the area’s checkpoints, told AFP at a bar located underneath the Sydney Opera House.
Some Hong Kongers, despite the restrictions, ventured out to mark the beginning of the year and gathered at Victoria Harbor to take selfies.
In Tokyo, where residents face the prospect of a state of emergency after infections reached new levels, people lined up with masks to offer New Year’s prayers.
Wuhan in China, where the virus first appeared late last year, saw thousands gather to celebrate.
In other places the mood was more depressing.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged in a New Year’s speech that a second wave of COVID-19 was hitting the nation.
“The fight against that doesn’t stop for a minute,” he said.
Italy, where shocking images of makeshift morgues and exhausted doctors awakened the world to the severity of the crisis, is nationally locked out until January 7 with a 10 p.m. curfew.
From France to Latvia to Brazil, police and, in some cases, military personnel were deployed to enforce curfews or ban large gatherings.
Paris and Athens hosted socially distancing meetings, with a virtual concert and light show over Notre Dame in the French capital and fireworks over the Acropolis in Greece.
In London, 74-year-old American singer-songwriter Patti Smith was to celebrate the New Year with a tribute to the National Health Service workers who died from COVID-19, screened on the Piccadilly Circus screen and broadcast on Youtube.
But due to the alarm over rising infection rates, the big screen projection was canceled.
A few dozen revelers came to Parliament Square to watch Big Ben ring at 11:00 pm, midnight in Brussels, marking the moment when Brexit finally became a reality, with Britain breaking its turbulent partnership of half a century with Europe.
A fireworks and laser show was held in Dubai at the Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world, where there have been a large number of new cases. Spectators were required to wear masks and register with identification QR codes.
On the shores of Lake Baikal in Siberia, where temperatures plummet to -35 degrees Celsius (-31 Fahrenheit), about a dozen Russians emerged invigorated after a dip in the ice on New Year’s Eve.
The swimmers, known in Russia as “walruses,” ran several kilometers (miles) through a snowy forest in festive bathing suits and costumes before diving into the world’s largest freshwater lake.
“It’s invigorating. It hurts a little!” Andrei Bugai told AFP.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel used her New Year’s greeting to warn that the coronavirus crisis will last into 2021 even if vaccines bring some hope, as police clashed with revelers near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin
As the last hours of 2020 passed in America, New York City authorities blocked public access to Times Square, where thousands of people often gather to watch a crystal ball fall at midnight.
A star-studded celebration was televised from the plaza with performances by artists like Jennifer Lopez and Gloria Gaynor, but their confetti will fall onto a largely deserted pavement.
The United States, the most affected country in the world, is approaching 20 million registered infections and 345,000 deaths.
But President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office in January, gave a positive note.
“I’m more optimistic than ever about America’s chances,” he said in a video interview on ABC’s countdown show.
“The United States can do anything and I am absolutely confident, confident that we will come back and come back even stronger than before.”
In Brazil, where 195,000 people have died from COVID-19, the second-highest death toll, Rio de Janeiro prevented the usual swarms of revelers from gathering on Copacabana beach.
That didn’t stop revelers from lighting up the city’s iconic skyline with fan fireworks, the booms of which competed with blows from critics protesting far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, the leader dubbed the “tropical Trump.”
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