Global celebrations ushered in 2022 on Saturday, yet festivities were often scaled back and tinged with apprehension due to a surge in Covid-19 infections, despite hopes for a brighter year and a pandemic exit.
New York’s Times Square welcomed the new year with a diminished gathering, Paris forwent its customary fireworks display because of the Omicron variant‘s rapid spread, and London’s pyrotechnic show was broadcast on television to deter large crowds.
From his Vatican City vantage point, Pope Francis issued a New Year’s Day appeal for an end to global conflicts and brutality.
“Let’s not succumb to defeatism or complaints; instead, let’s work together to foster peace,” he declared. “We yearn for peace”.
The previous year witnessed the inauguration of a new American leader, the erosion of democratic ideals in various nations—from Afghanistan and Myanmar to Hong Kong and Russia—and the first Olympics held without spectators.
However, the pandemic continued to shape the daily routines of most people around the globe. The grim milestone of one million daily coronavirus cases worldwide was surpassed in the final hours of 2021, fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, resulting in over 5.4 million fatalities since the virus’s initial identification in China in December 2019.
Great Britain, the United States, and even Australia—regions previously shielded from the pandemic’s full force—experienced record-high infection numbers.
France announced on Thursday that Omicron had become the dominant strain within its borders. In his national address, French President Emmanuel Macron cautioned that “the coming weeks will present significant challenges” but expressed “genuine grounds for optimism,” suggesting that “2022 might bring an end to the epidemic ”.
In Indian Kashmir, a crush of people at approximately 2:45 a.m. local time (9:15 p.m. GMT) near the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine, a prominent Hindu pilgrimage site in northern India, resulted in at least 12 fatalities and 13 injuries.
Numerous celebrations in cities worldwide, from Seoul and Mexico City to San Francisco, were either canceled or significantly curtailed.
In Paris, where the traditional
