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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — This New 12 months’s Eve is being celebrated like no different, with pandemic restrictions limiting crowds and many individuals bidding farewell to a yr they’d favor to overlook.
Australia will likely be among the many first nations to ring in 2021 due to its proximity to the Worldwide Date Line. In previous years 1 million folks crowded Sydney’s harbor to observe fireworks that heart on the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
Authorities this yr are advising revelers to observe on tv. Persons are solely allowed in downtown Sydney if they’ve a restaurant reservation or are one among 5 company of an inner-city condominium resident. Individuals gained’t be allowed within the metropolis heart with out a allow.
Some haborside eating places are charging as much as 1,690 Australian {dollars} ($1,294) for a seat, Sydney’s The Every day Telegraph newspaper reported Wednesday.
Sydney is Australia’s most populous metropolis and has its most lively group transmission of COVID-19 in latest weeks.
Melbourne, Australia’s second-most populous metropolis, has cancelled its fireworks this yr.
“For the primary time in lots of, a few years we made the large determination, tough determination to cancel the fireworks,” Melbourne Mayor Sally Capp mentioned.
“We did that as a result of we all know that it attracts as much as 450,000 folks into town for one second at midnight to take pleasure in a spectacular show and music. We’re not doing that this yr,” she added.
New Zealand, which is 2 hours forward of Sydney, and a number of other of its South Pacific island neighbors haven’t any COVID-19, and New 12 months celebrations there are the identical as ever.
In Chinese language societies, the Lunar New 12 months celebration that falls in February in 2021 usually takes priority over photo voltaic New 12 months, on Jan. 1. Whereas celebrations of the Western vacation have been rising extra widespread in latest many years, this yr will likely be extra muted.
Beijing will maintain a countdown ceremony with just some invited company, whereas different deliberate occasions have been cancelled. And nighttime temperatures plunging to -15 Celsius (- 5 Fahrenheit) will probably discourage folks from spending the night time out with associates.
Taiwan will host its common New 12 months’s celebration, a fireworks show by its capital metropolis’s iconic tower, Taipei 101, in addition to a flag-raising ceremony in entrance of the Presidential Workplace Constructing the following morning. The island has been a hit story within the pandemic, registering solely 7 deaths and 700 confirmed instances of COVID-19.
Hong Kong, with its British colonial historical past and huge expatriate inhabitants, has often seen raucous celebrations alongside the waterfront and in bar districts. For the second yr working, nevertheless, New 12 months’s Eve fireworks have been cancelled, this time over coronavirus somewhat than public safety issues.
Nonetheless roiled by its coronavirus outbreak, Hong Kong social distancing rules prohibit gatherings to solely two folks. Eating places have to shut by 6 p.m. Reside performances and dancing usually are not allowed. However crowds nonetheless throng procuring facilities.
In Japan, some folks skipped what’s typically an opportunity to return to ancestral properties for the vacations, hoping to reduce well being dangers for prolonged households amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Rural eating places noticed enterprise drop, whereas dwelling deliveries of conventional New 12 months’s “good luck” meals known as “osechi” boomed.
Emperor Naruhito is delivering a video message for the brand new yr, as an alternative of waving from a window with the imperial household as cheering crowds throng the palace.
Practice providers that often carry folks on shrine visits in a single day Dec. 31, in addition to some countdown ceremonies, have been cancelled.
Meiji Shrine in downtown Tokyo, which attracts hundreds of thousands of individuals yearly throughout New 12 months holidays and is often open all night time on New 12 months’s Eve, will shut its doorways at four p.m. on Dec. 31 this yr, the shrine introduced on its web site.
In South Korea, Seoul’s metropolis authorities has cancelled its annual New 12 months’s Eve bell-ringing ceremony within the Jongno neighborhood for the primary time because it first held the occasion in 1953, months after the tip of the Korean Warfare.
The occasion, by which residents ring a big bell at a conventional pavilion when the clock strikes twelve, drew an estimated 100,000 folks and was broadcast stay.
Authorities in jap coastal areas say they’ll shut seashores and different spots the place a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals sometimes collect on New 12 months’s Day to observe the dawn.
The southeastern metropolis of Pohang says it as an alternative plans to broadcast stay the dawn at a number of seashores below its jurisdiction on its YouTube channel on Jan. 1.
Earlier this week, South Korea’s central authorities mentioned it’ll ban non-public social gatherings of greater than 5 folks and shut down ski resorts and main vacationer spots nationwide from Christmas Eve till Jan. three as efforts to deliver a latest viral resurgence below management.
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Related Press journalists Huizhong Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, Raf Wober in Hong Kong, Mary Yamaguchi and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2020 The Related Press. All rights reserved. This materials might not be printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed with out permission.
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