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(Reuters) – Blue and gold fireworks soared through the sky over the Sydney Opera House like they do every New Year’s Eve, but the harbor below was a deserted ghost town, an eerie farewell to a year not seen. will lose.
No light show would illuminate Beijing from the top of the television tower. The lions of London’s Trafalgar Square were entrenched, as were Moscow’s Red Square and Madrid’s Puerta del Sol. In Rome, crowds did not gather at St. Peter’s, the Pope did not conduct Mass, and revelers did not make their annual dive into the Tiber.
Have a good trip 2020. Hello 2021.
Some cities planned, like Sydney, to launch fireworks over empty streets. Others, like London and Singapore, simply canceled their shows. Paris, Rome and Istanbul were under curfew.
The New Year’s Eve countdown ball was ready to fall on Broadway. But instead of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers crammed shoulder to shoulder in Times Square, the audience would be a preselected group of nurses, doctors and other key workers, their families kept six feet apart in socially distanced pens.
With more than 1.7 million people dead and 82 million infected worldwide since last New Year’s Eve, but in the hope that new vaccines can help control the pandemic, the year ended like no other. remember. Angela Merkel, in her 16th New Year’s Eve speech as German Chancellor, said so.
“I think I’m not exaggerating when I say: never in the last 15 years have we found the old year so heavy. And never, despite all the concerns and a certain skepticism, have we looked forward to the new year with such hope. “
Germany banned the sale of fireworks to deter the crowds. The Berlin police “would systematically punish offenders,” authorities said.
‘HELL OF A YEAR’
In the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pandemic originated a year ago, thousands of people were expected to gather at landmarks throughout the city center to count down to 2021. Some said they were being cautious, but not particularly concerned.
“Safety is the priority,” said Wang Xuemei, 23, a teacher, from Wuhan.
In Australia, where the Sydney fireworks annually serve as the world’s first major visual display of the New Year, gatherings were banned and internal borders closed. Most of the people were barred from downtown Sydney.
“It has been an incredible year,” said Gladys Berejiklian, prime minister of the state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney. “Hopefully 2021 is easier for everyone.”
The virus did not stop North Korea from organizing its celebration in Pyongyang. State media showed revelers in masks filling the main square for a concert and fireworks.
But at Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, where Spaniards often count until midnight by stuffing grapes into their mouths every time the clock strikes, the police dragged barriers to keep people out. José Ángel Balsa, a 61-year-old retiree, said he would spend the night “with the family, just the four of us at home, making a lot of video calls and hoping this will end as soon as possible.”
In Britain, under increasingly strict restrictions to combat a new, more contagious variant of the virus, official billboards instruct the public to “watch the New Year safely at home.”
Italy’s bars and restaurants were closed and a 10 p.m. curfew was imposed. Pope Francis canceled plans to run New Years and New Years services due to an outbreak of sciatica, the Vatican said.
At “A la Ville de Rodez”, a luxury delicatessen in Paris, manager Brice Tapon sent customers home with packets of foie gras, truffles and pate for groups of two or three. The rules prohibit more than six adults from gathering around the table.
One of the customers, Anne Caplin, said that “I would gorge myself on foie gras, champagne and all this food.”
And I’ll stay home.
(Report from Reuters offices; written by Gareth Jones; edited by Peter Graff)
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