Daily US Times: This New Year’s Eve is being celebrated like no other across the world, with many bidding farewell to a year they would prefer to forget.

From the South Pacific to New York City, Covid restrictions on open air gatherings saw people turning to made-for-TV fireworks displays or packing it in early since they could not toast the end of 2020 in the presence of friends or carousing strangers.

As midnight rolled from Asia to the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas, the New Year’s experience mirrored national responses to the coronavirus itself. Some countries and cities canceled or scaled back their festivities to contain the virus, while others without active outbreaks carried on like any other year.

Australia was among the first to ring in the new year. In past years, at least 1 million people crowded Sydney’s harbor to watch fireworks. But this time, most of the people watched on television as authorities urged residents to stay home to see the seven minutes of pyrotechnics that lit up the Sydney Harbor Bridge and its surroundings.

In New York’s Times Square, the ball dropped like in previous years, but police fenced off the scene synonymous with New Year’s Eve to prevent crowds of any size from gathering.

Dubai, which is another of the world’s most popular places to be on December 31, pressed ahead with its revelry despite a surge of infections. Images of masked health care workers briefly lit up Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, before fireworks exploded in the sky over the building. Tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets and squares marked out for social distancing were largely ignored.

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