Twenty twenty-one crept off with farewell celebrations around the world mostly muffled by the pandemic. But good news from South Africa – where authorities lifted a curfew and said Omicron had crested – brought hope for a joyous New Year.
The Australian city of Sydney was one place where the New Year charged in with something like full swagger, as spectacular fireworks glittered in the harbour below the Opera House.
Displays called off at Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, London’s riverside and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
The golden ball was due to drop at New York’s Times Square, but the crowd shouting out the countdown of the year’s exit would be a quarter the usual size, masked up, socially distanced and with vaccine papers in hand.
South Africa, which first raised the alarm about omicron, announcing that the Omicron wave had crested without a huge surge in deaths. It lifted a night time curfew just in time for the New Year.
“I’m pretty sure it’s going to be amazing. I’m just hoping that Cape Town goes back to the old Cape Town that we all knew about,” said Michael Mchede, manager of a Hard Rock cafe by the white sands of Cape Town’s Camps Bay Beach, thrilled to find himself getting the place ready to host an unexpected bash.
Nearby, tourist Jochem Verbunt said his hope for 2022 was “that corona will be gone”.
“I’m excited that you don’t have to go back to the hotel. You can roam around on the beautiful beach over here, and let’s see if it brings a party!”
The sudden arrival of Omicron has brought record-setting case counts to countries around the world. Although deaths have not risen in kind, bringing hope the new variant is milder, many countries have reimposed restrictions to prevent healthcare systems from being overwhelmed. Even where gatherings are permitted, many people have chosen to stay home.
London’s Big Ben, on top of the Houses of Parliament, was to chime midnight and ring in the New Year for the first time after three and a half years of restoration.
New York’s Times Square celebration, with just 15,000 spectators instead of the usual 55,000 or so, will be a big upgrade from last year’s audience of a few dozen. But with New York State reporting more than 74,000 cases on Thursday and 22 per cent of tests coming back positive, critics wondered whether the celebrations should go ahead at all.
In Los Angeles, the countdown party in Grand Park was called off. Rapper LL Cool J had to step down as a headliner on ABC’s New Year’s Eve telecast after testing positive.
Celebrations in Asia were mostly scaled down or called off. In South Korea, a traditional midnight bell-ringing ceremony was cancelled for the second year and authorities announced an extension of stricter distancing rules for two weeks to tackle a persistent surge in infections.
Celebrations were banned in Tokyo's glittering Shibuya entertainment district, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida took to YouTube to urge people to wear masks and limit numbers at parties.
China, where the coronavirus first emerged in late 2019, was on high alert, with the city of Xian under lockdown and New Year events in other cities cancelled.
Authorities in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, planned to close 11 roads that usually draw big crowds for New Year. Malaysia banned big gatherings nationwide and cancelled the annual Petronas Twin Towers fireworks display.
In North Korea, TV footage showed thousands of people watching fireworks in a square near the Taedong River in central Pyongyang.