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Ondon welcomed the New Year with dazzling light and a fireworks display across the Thames, but the celebrations were muted and people said to stay home due to coronavirus restrictions.
In the midst of the fireworks, several projections of light filled the sky over the O2 Arena for the televised screen, one of which featured the NHS logo on a heart while a child’s voice said “Thank you, NHS heroes.”
A picture of the familiar figure of one of 2020’s heroes, Captain Sir Tom Moore, who raised £ 33 million by walking in his back garden, was also screened. There was also a humorous nod to one of last year’s quirks, working from home, with a mute symbol backed by a voice-over saying “You’re silent.”
When colored lights flashed across the Thames, sparking more fireworks over Wembley Stadium, the Black Lives Matter movement was also recognized, before a closing call through the voice of Sir David Attenborough for all people work in 2021 to help our “fragile planet.”
Despite the incredible display, much of London was eerily quiet as the capital ushered in the New Year under strict Tier 4 coronavirus measures.
Images of Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and the Embankment in front of the London Eye, places generally flooded with revelers on New Year’s Eve, showed them almost deserted on Thursday night. However, some people took to the streets despite warnings from the police.
Patrol officers in Westminster were seen hovering over small groups of people who had gathered to celebrate. It comes after Scotland Yard told Londoners to celebrate the New Year at home and revelers broke the rules and faced fines of up to £ 10,000.
The Metropolitan Police Marine Corps unit described its generally busy New Year’s Eve shift as “unsettling” and said London seemed to be heeding advice to stay at home.
The force’s message came amid rising infection rates and increased pressure on hospitals in the capital.
Health services leaders have warned would-be partygoers to stay home to reduce the risk of infection, warning: “Covid loves the crowd.”
People across the country were told not to add “fuel to the fire” by mixing in groups, as nearly half of England’s major hospitals deal with more Covid-19 patients than at the peak of the first wave of the virus.
Figures released on New Year’s Eve, when health personnel and the government urge people to call in 2021 within their own home, also show that just under a third of acute trusts have more Covid patients. 19 than at any time since the pandemic began.
Infection rates are on the rise in all regions of the country, according to the latest data from Public Health England, and the 55,892 daily laboratory-confirmed cases in the UK on Thursday represent the latest record since mass testing began in late May. .
Professor Hugh Montgomery cautioned that people who don’t wear masks and continue to mix unnecessarily have “blood on their hands.”
The intensive care doctor at Whittington hospital in north London said that anyone who thinks it is acceptable to have “one more night” is spreading the virus.
He told BBC Radio Five Live: “Anyone listening to this, not wearing their mask and behaving like this, has blood on their hands, they are spreading this virus. Other people will transmit it and people will die.
“They won’t know that they have killed people, but they have.”
New Year’s Eve celebrations around the world have been silenced due to the strict coronavirus measures.
Some major cities canceled or reduced their traditional celebrations, but a handful of places without active Covid outbreaks continued as usual.
The festivities are being particularly muted in Europe, amid fears about a new, more contagious strain of the disease.
Australia was one of the first nations to call in 2021 due to its proximity to the international date line. In recent years, a million people packed Sydney Harbor to watch the fireworks. Instead, most watched on television as authorities urged residents to stay home and the country’s most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria, were battling new Covid-19 outbreaks.
Port locations were fenced off, popular parks closed, and famous night spots eerily deserted. A fireworks display at 9 p.m. was ruled out, but a seven-minute pyrotechnic show at midnight brought a momentary joy as fireworks spectacularly lit up the iconic Harbor Bridge and its surroundings.
Melbourne, Australia’s second most populous city, canceled its fireworks.
In South Korea, the Seoul city government canceled its annual New Year’s Eve chime ceremony in the Jongno neighborhood for the first time since the event was first held in 1953, months after the end of the Korean War. The ceremony normally attracts around 100,000 people and is broadcast live.
Authorities in the eastern coastal areas of South Korea have closed beaches and other places where hundreds of thousands of people often gather on New Year’s Day to watch the sunrise.
The cities and countries that have managed to control the coronavirus have to celebrate it.
New Zealand, which is two hours ahead of Sydney, and several of its neighboring islands in the South Pacific that also do not have active cases of Covid-19 held their usual New Year celebrations.
The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first coronavirus outbreak was reported, thousands of people gathered on the street for the countdown to the beginning of 2021. The city has not reported a new case of local transmission of the disease since May 10, after lifting one of the strictest confinements in the world seven months ago.
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