Covid clouds world’s New Year celebrations
New restrictions aim at slowing down soaring infections
We will also press on to bring in much-needed migrant workers and ensure international talents feel welcome and are able to complement Singaporeans, the Channel News Asia reported, citing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's New Year message, laying out the recovery path for the Covid-19-battered economy.
New York, Jan. 1: The world ushered in 2022 on Saturday with scaled-back celebrations due to new restrictions aimed at slowing soaring Covid cases — although hope remained for a better new year.
New York revived its New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square in limited form, Paris nixed its fireworks show over rising Omicron cases and London’s pyrotechnic display was broadcast on TV to discourage crowds.
The past 12 months saw a new US president and a fresh Adele album, the first spectator-free Olympics, and dreams of democracy from Afghanistan to Sudan and Hong Kong crushed by authoritarian regimes.
But the pandemic — now entering its third year — still dominated.
More than 5.4 million people have died since the Coronavirus was first reported in central China in December 2019. Countless more have been sickened or subjected to lockdowns and virus tests.
The year 2021 started with hope as life-saving vaccines reached around 60 percent of the world’s population, although many of the poor still had limited access while others refused to receive a shot. As the year drew to a close, the Omicron variant pushed the number of daily new Covid-19 cases past one million for the first time.
France on Friday became the latest country to announce Omicron was now its dominant Coronavirus
strain.
In Britain, the United States and even Australia — long a refuge from the pandemic — the variant’s prominence is driving record numbers of new cases.
New York brought back to life its annual New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square after skipping the event last year over rising infections.
But the scaled-down event welcomed fewer revelers than in previous years, with about 15,000 people — all required to show proof of vaccination — allowed in. One couple had travelled all the may from Memphis in the southern state of Tennessee to attend the festivities.
“This is a dream of ours. This is one of our bucket lists to see the ball drop on New Year’s, and we got vaccinated because of this,” Chroni Stokes said.
“We weren’t going to get vaccinated at first, but we read the CDC and the guidelines and so we got vaccinated just to come to this.” —