The Chinese city of Wuhan, which was the global epicenter of the COIVD-19 outbreak, saw large crowds take to the streets to sound the new year.
Photographs of the festivities show some partygoers wearing masks and little or no social distance as they threw balloons into the air at the Hankow Customs House building, a popular New Year’s Eve venue in Wuhan, according to Reuters .
Police were seen trying to control the crowds and even urged people without masks to put on one if they wanted to continue the celebration, the media reported.
The festivities come a year after the World Health Organization said it first received an alert about a backlog of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, which was later the world’s first coronavirus outbreak.
WHO experts are expected to meet in China in January to investigate where the virus originated.
Some countries such as France and Spain played the new year with curfews imposed on the public. In Australia and New Zealand, people celebrated 2021 as they normally would before the pandemic.
Back in New York, Times Square was a ghost town where police cordoned off the area as people prepared to watch the famous ball fall from home.