This New Year’s Eve is celebrated like no other in most of the world, with many saying goodbye to a year they would most like to forget.
From the South Pacific to New York City, pandemic restrictions on outdoor gatherings caused people to turn to fireworks displays for TV or pack it up early, as they couldn’t toast in the presence of friends or strangers in late 2020.
As midnight rolled from Asia to the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and America, the New Year’s experience reflected national responses to the virus itself. Some countries and cities have canceled or scaled back their festivities, while others continued without active outbreaks like every other year.
Australia was one of the first to ring the bell in 2021. In recent years, 1 million people have thronged Sydney Harbor to watch fireworks. This time, most watched television as authorities urged residents to stay home to watch the seven minutes of pyrotechnics illuminating the Sydney Harbor Bridge and its surroundings.
Melbourne, Australia’s second most populous city, has canceled its annual fireworks display to discourage crowds. Officials in London made the same decision. And while the ball would fall in New York’s Times Square as always, police closed off the grounds synonymous with New Years Eve.
Another of the world’s most popular places to be on Dec. 31, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates continued its revelry despite a wave of infections. Images of masked health workers briefly illuminated the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, before fireworks exploded in the sky above the building. Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets, and squares marked out for social distances were largely ignored.
Still, the pandemic robbed the night of its free spirit. Authorities have implemented a range of antivirus measures to contain the hustle and bustle in downtown Dubai. In luxury bars and restaurants there was music and people drunk, but dancing was strictly prohibited.
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 we can celebrate next year with some real freedom.”
South Africans were urged to cancel parties and to light candles in honor of health workers and those killed in the COVID-19 pandemic.
In many European countries, authorities warned that they were ready to deal with revelers who violate public health rules, including nightly curfews in France, Italy, Turkey, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Greece.
“No one will be on the streets after 10pm (Athens) will be a dead city to ensure that restrictions are no longer imposed,” said Greek public order minister Michalis Chrisohoidis.
The French government flooded the streets with 100,000 law enforcement officers to enforce the nationwide curfew.
A few families gathered in Madrid’s sunny central Puerta de Sol Square to listen to the rehearsal of the traditional ringing of the bells held at midnight. They followed the Spanish custom of eating 12 grapes at every stroke of the clock before police cleared the area that normally houses thousands of revelers.
When the clock struck midnight, fireworks erupted over Moscow’s Red Square and the Acropolis in Athens, but the explosions echoed in largely empty streets as people obeyed orders to stay home.
From Berlin to Brussels, normally raucous celebrations were muffled by the pandemic.
Even the UK government is keen to celebrate the UK’s final separation from the EU, placed ads begging the public to “see the New Year safely at home” amid a record number of newly confirmed cases.
In Scotland, which is proud of the Hogmanay celebrations on December 31, the government explained what it expected not to see.
“No gatherings, no house parties, no first-class. Instead, by 2021 we should take care of our own homes using only our own households, ”said Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Many around the world looked hopefully to 2021, thanks in part to the advent of vaccines offering an opportunity to beat the pandemic.
“Goodbye, 2020. Here comes something better: 2021,” said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
While there won’t be crowds in Times Square, the mayor promised that the city, which has recorded more than 25,000 deaths from the virus, would recover next year.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, more than 1.8 million deaths worldwide have been linked to the coronavirus.
Some leaders, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, used their New Year’s speech to thank citizens for the long hardships during the lockdown and criticized those who defied the rules. Others, such as Italian President Sergio Mattarella, raised the flag for science, urging citizens to put aside their fears of immunization against COVID-19.
“Faced with a disease so contagious and causing so many deaths, it is necessary to protect one’s health and it is a duty to protect that of others – family members, friends, colleagues,” says Mattarella, 79.
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where fireworks and celebrations were officially canceled to limit the rapid spread of the virus, police officers are bracing for what promised to be a long night.
Rio officials decided to shut down Copacabana, where millions of white-clad people usually gather on the beach to admire fireworks and attend major concerts. This year, between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. on Jan. 1, only local residents will have access to the city’s iconic coast, authorities said.
In South Korea, Seoul City Council canceled the annual New Year’s Eve bells ceremony in Jongno Ward for the first time since the event in 1953, months after the end of the Korean War.
New Zealand, which is two hours ahead of Sydney, and some of its island neighbors in the South Pacific who also have no active COVID-19 business, held their usual New Year’s activities.
In Chinese societies, the virus caused more muted celebrations of the Solar New Year, which is less widely observed than the Lunar New Year that will fall in February 2021. Exactly a year ago, the first reports of a mysterious respiratory illness appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
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Jordans reported from Bonn, Germany, and Gatopoulos from Athens, Greece. AP reporters around the world contributed to this report.