SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGEN­CIES

● Some of the most icon­ic cel­e­bra­tions will be go­ing ahead as coun­tries hit new record lev­els of in­fec­tions ●

(AL JAZEERA) — Sky­rock­et­ing COVID-19 case rates, dri­ven by the high­ly trans­mis­si­ble Omi­cron vari­ant, have caused some coun­tries to mute their New Year’s Eve cel­e­bra­tions, while oth­ers have been hes­i­tant to reim­pose strict con­trols.

In New York’s Times Square, of­fi­cial events will be scaled back, but crowds of rev­ellers are still ex­pect­ed.

The city said it would lim­it the num­ber of peo­ple it lets in­to the world-fa­mous square to about 15,000 in-per­son spec­ta­tors – far few­er than the many tens of thou­sands of rev­ellers it host­ed pri­or to the pan­dem­ic.

The Unit­ed States has been among the na­tions break­ing records for new cas­es this week.

South Ko­re­an au­thor­i­ties in Seoul were show­ing sim­i­lar cau­tion, bar­ring spec­ta­tors from a tra­di­tion­al mid­night bell-ring­ing that will in­stead be live-streamed on tele­vi­sion and a meta­verse plat­form that will al­low peo­ple to view a vir­tu­al-re­al­i­ty ver­sion of the cer­e­mo­ny.

In con­trast, Aus­tralia’s largest city Syd­ney has de­cid­ed to press ahead with a fire­works dis­play that will light up the city’s har­bour.

Un­like last year’s spec­ta­tor-free event, tens of thou­sands of rev­ellers are ex­pect­ed to crowd the fore­shore de­spite one of the world’s fastest-grow­ing case­loads.

Aus­tralia’s con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment has aban­doned a “COVID-ze­ro” pol­i­cy in favour of “liv­ing with COVID”, based on high rates of adult vac­ci­na­tion and mount­ing ev­i­dence that Omi­cron is less dead­ly.

In the Brazil­ian sea­side city of Rio, cel­e­bra­tions that usu­al­ly bring three mil­lion peo­ple to Co­paca­bana Beach will go ahead.

In South Africa, the first coun­try to re­port the new vari­ant, a mid­night-to-4am cur­few was lift­ed to al­low cel­e­bra­tions to go ahead.

The year 2021 start­ed with hope as life-sav­ing vac­cines were rolled out to about 60 per­cent of the world’s pop­u­la­tion.

The emer­gence of the Omi­cron vari­ant has pushed the num­ber of dai­ly new COVID cas­es past the one mil­lion mark for the first time this week since the pan­dem­ic be­gan in March 2020, ac­cord­ing to a tal­ly.

On-again-off-again re­stric­tions have prompt­ed vo­cal and oc­ca­sion­al­ly vi­o­lent an­ti-lock­down, an­ti-vac­cine and an­ti-gov­ern­ment protests.

Some lead­ers have been hes­i­tant to reim­pose strict con­trols seen in 2020 for fear of spark­ing a new eco­nom­ic down­turn.

The World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion has warned of try­ing times ahead.