Thursday December 31, 2020
New Zealand is having a blast
Italians experience New Year locked up
Italy stays silent on New Year’s Eve: the whole country is considered the red zone. Citizens have to celebrate alone at home, parties are forbidden. Anyone who ignites a firecracker in Rome risks a fine of 500 euros. The New Zealanders, on the other hand, let it rip: party without borders, tired of rockets and no fear of Corona.
Italy is heading for a rather unsociable New Year celebration: the whole country has been a red zone again for several days since midnight with strong exit restrictions. Between 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and 7 a.m. on New Year’s morning, 60 million citizens are even banned from going out – with only a few exceptions. The government has banned parties. A maximum of two adult guests from another household are allowed to sit at the table for New Year’s Eve dinner.
The capital Rome also issued a fireworks ban on Wednesday evening, which applies until January 6th. Anyone who violates the bang ban in Rome faces a fine of up to 500 euros, as mayor Virginia Raggi ordered. According to a survey, almost every second person in Italy would report illegal New Year’s Eve parties by large groups in the neighborhood to the authorities. The Coldiretti Agriculture Association published these figures from the Ixè survey institute on Wednesday. According to official information, more than two million people in Italy have been infected with the corona virus. On Wednesday, the authorities counted a good 16,200 new infections within 24 hours. The infection situation was already more violent, but the government of the country absolutely wants to prevent a third strong corona wave.
Success in the pandemic fight: Fireworks in Auckland
Fireworks were launched from the Sky Tower in Auckland.
(Photo: dpa)
It’s quite different at the other end of the world: New Zealand has already welcomed the New Year with a number of major music festivals and fireworks shows. In contrast to distant Europe, the island state in the South Pacific has not recorded any local corona cases for more than a month. Therefore, the events could take place without restrictions on the number of visitors or other corona-related restrictions. In the country’s largest city, Auckland, there was a light show around Harbor Bridge and Sky Tower, followed by a five-minute fireworks display at midnight. One of the biggest New Year’s Eve events is the three-day music festival Rhythm and Vines, which takes place near the city of Gisborne in the northeast of the North Island.
Thanks to early and strict measures, New Zealand is considered successful in the fight against the coronavirus. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 2162 cases have been confirmed in the island state, 25 people have died from the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen. The latest local corona case was recorded in mid-November.