Large crowds take to the streets during New Year’s Eve in Wuhan, the world’s former epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Photos were uploaded to social media showing people releasing balloons into the air at the Hankow Customs House building, wearing only masks and a seemingly nonexistent practice of social distancing.
Due to this, the police were dispatched to try to control the crowd and was tasked to make sure that they practice proper social distancing and wear masks.
The celebration was held a year after the WHO (World Health Organization) first received news of progressively accumulating pneumonia cases in the city of Wuhan, which would then later be classified as the first outbreak of the coronavirus.
Experts coming from the WHO are to meet in China come January, in order to investigate the site where the virus first originated.
Countries such as France and Spain celebrated the new year with curfews on the public but the opposite happened in Australia and New Zealand, where the celebration for 2021 was done in the same fashion as before the pandemic.
In New York, however, Times Square was barren of people as it was closed off to the public. People were forced to watch the iconic ball drop at the comfort of their homes.
