The world says goodbye to another year marked by the pandemic

Between canceled parties, curfews and other restrictions, the world is preparing this Friday to enter 2022 after another year of pandemic in which, despite the deployment of vaccines, the omicron variant caused a boom in infections never seen before.

The last twelve months left a change of president in the United States, an Olympic Games without spectators, dreams of democracy broken from Afghanistan to Burma or Nicaragua and the shocking image of Leo Messi without the Barcelona shirt.

But it was the pandemic, now entering its third year, that has once again dominated the lives of much of humanity. More than 5.4 million people have died since the virus was detected in central China in December 2019.

More than 280 million contracted the virus according to an AFP balance based on official data, although the real figure may be much higher.

And almost all of humanity has been dragged by a swing of confinements and restrictions depending on the evolution of the pandemic.

Vaccines provided hope, with more than 60% of the world’s population immunized. But its distribution has been uneven, especially in poor countries, which has facilitated the emergence of new variants.

The last of them, omicron, has caused more than a million infections in a week for the first time, according to an AFP count.

France, which has reached all-time highs in new cases, became the last country on Thursday night to announce that this strain is already the majority in its territory.

Other countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, or Argentina have also registered records of new daily infections.

“Celebrate life”

From Seoul to San Francisco, passing through Mexico or Athens, the New Year’s celebrations were once again limited or directly canceled.

But in Rio de Janeiro, which usually gathers three million people on Copacabana beach, the party goes on.

As in New York’s Times Square, official events will be reduced, but crowds are expected as well.

Sydney, Australia’s largest city and one of the first to ring in the new year, also decided to keep the fireworks that often light up its iconic harbor.

Unlike in 2020, the show will be able to bring together tens of thousands after Australia has abandoned its virus eradication strategy this year and seeks to live with it, based on the high vaccination rates of its population and the growing evidence that omicron it is less lethal than other strains.

“I try to focus on the positive things this year,” said a 22-year-old medical student, Melinda Howard, who was already waiting for the fires next to the Sydney Opera House.

In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai is preparing a fireworks display at the Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world at 828 meters, and the emirate of Ras Al-Khaimah will once again try to break the world record for the largest fireworks display.

Half parties

But in the face of the wave of unparalleled infections caused by the contagious new variant, many governments have decided to recover the restrictions for this festive period.

Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Bangkok canceled their New Year celebrations, Greece banned music in bars and restaurants, and Pope Francis suspended his regular New Year’s Eve visit to the manger in St. Peter’s Square.

Most Spanish cities canceled their public festivities, but not Madrid, with a less restrictive approach, which will allow 7,000 people to eat the grapes during the traditional bells at Puerta del Sol.

For many, in Bombay, Barcelona or Montreal, the party will have to end earlier due to the curfews imposed against the virus, in some cases even before midnight.

In South Africa, where the new variant was detected at the end of November, the presidency decided the opposite: to lift the curfew just before the New Year, after having worsened the peak of infections caused by omicron.

“Our hope is that this measure will be maintained,” Minister Mondli Gungubele told the Presidency on Friday, although the use of a mask will remain mandatory in public spaces and meetings will continue to be limited to 1,000 people indoors and 2,000 outdoors.

Experts expect this trend to be replicated elsewhere, leading to a less deadly phase of the pandemic in 2022.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) does not want to lower its guard and warns that the “tsunami” of infections could put health systems “on the brink of collapse”.