DM Monitoring
HONG HONG: As Asia says goodbye to 2020 – a tumultuous year that saw the planet roiled by a deadly pandemic – celebrations will be smaller, shorter and more muted amid fears of coronavirus flare-ups.
In Beijing, the capital of the world’s most-populous country, an annual New Year light show at the China Central Television Tower scheduled for Thursday through Sunday has been called off.
The Beijing Yonghe Lama Temple, a tourist site, has also cut the number of visitors allowed by half since Thursday. Many Chinese tourists are staying home or taking shorter domestic trips.
The coronavirus emerged a year ago in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and has since spread globally, infecting more than 82 million people and killing more than 1.7 million.
In Wuhan, where the pandemic is thought to have originated, thousands are expected to gather at several popular landmarks across the city centre for the countdown to 2021. Some said they were being cautious, but weren’t particularly worried.
“Safety is the priority,” said Wuhan resident Wang Xuemei, 23, a teacher.
“It’s fine because these measures aren’t enforced very strictly,” added her friend and colleague Wang Anyu. “You can still go out.”
Australia, whose fireworks over the Sydney Opera House are a visual staple of the season, has in many places restricted movement, gatherings and even internal borders. Most people are banned from coming to Sydney’s downtown on Thursday night. “What a hell of a year it’s been,” said Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales state, where Sydney is located. “Hopefully 2021 will be easier on all of us.” Weather and COVID-19 are putting a damper on celebrations in Japan, which is calling off events and reducing public services. Japan’s Imperial Household Agency has cancelled an annual New Year’s event set for Jan. 2, at which Emperor Naruhito and other imperial family members were to greet well-wishers, because of the pandemic.
Shrines have asked people to stagger visits on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. East Japan Railway Company and Tokyo Metro are cancelling extra train services in the Tokyo metropolitan areas from late on Dec. 31 to Jan. 1. Snow, meanwhile, has blanketed parts of the country, leading to about 140 cancelled flights and other disruptions.
In Singapore’s downtown Marina Bay, there will be no fireworks to ring in the New Year for the first time since the annual tradition began in 2005. Instead, fireworks will be set off at different locations across the Southeast Asian citystate.
The globally famous band BTS is holding an online concert on Thursday night in South Korea, while observers elsewhere in the country are watching to see whether their neighbours to the north hold their annual New Year fireworks display in Pyongyang.
Elsewhere in South Korea, the government has shut down the beaches in Gangueng, on the country’s east coast, where people traditionally go to watch the first sunrise of the New Year. Seoul’s Bosingak bell-ringing ceremony was cancelled for the first time since 1953, but can be viewed “virtually” on the city’s website.
