The Chinese city of Wuhan – once the worldwide epicenter of the COIVD-19 outbreak – saw large crowds take to the streets to celebrate the new year.
Photos from the festivities show some revelers wearing masks and little to no social detachment as they tossed balloons into the air at the Hankow Customs building – a popular New Year’s Eve location in Wuhan, according to Reuters.
Police were seen trying to control the crowd and even urged people without masks to put on one if they wanted to continue the celebration, the vehicle said.
The festivities come a year after the World Health Organization said it received an alert about a group of pneumonia cases in Wuhan – which later turned out to be the world’s first coronavirus outbreak.
WHO experts are due to meet in China in January to investigate the origin of the virus.
Some countries, like France and Spain, played in the new year with touches of collecting taxes from 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 the police closed the area as people prepared to watch the famous ball fall from home.