World welcomes 2023 amid fears of new Covid-19 outbreak, war cries

Recently lifted Covid restrictions also gave China a chance to gather and celebrate

Countries around the world have celebrated New Year, after two years of muted or cancelled events due to the Covid pandemic. Although the fear of pandemic remains, people gathered to welcome 2023.

New Year celebrations have taken place on the east coast of the United States, and in Brazil, Argentina and the Caribbean.

Cities across Europe, Africa and Asia have also held festivities with fireworks marking the start of 2023.

Recently lifted Covid restrictions gave China a chance to gather and celebrate.

Thousands gathered in central Wuhan on Saturday night to count down to the start of what many hoped would be a much better year after a “tough” 2022 filled with lockdowns and in December a major new outbreak of the coronavirus.

Many released balloons into the sky when the clocks struck midnight, as per tradition in the central Chinese city where the pandemic began three years ago, before grabbing selfies with their friends.

“In the past year, I feel that Covid 19 was very serious and some of my family members have been hospitalised, 17-year-old Wuhan high school student, surnamed Wang, told Reuters from the riverside shortly after midnight.

Some came in fancy dress and almost everyone present wore masks as the country sees a wave of Covid which accelerated after curbs were dropped and which has since infected large swathes of the population with deaths now reaching an estimated 9000 a day according to UK-based health data firm Airfinity. In London, there was a drone display as part of a tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth, while in Edinburgh, thousands enjoyed the first full Hogmanay celebrations in three years.

There was also a tribute to Ukraine - with the London Eye lit up in blue and yellow, the colours of the Ukrainian flag.

Croatia started 2023 with a new currency, joining the eurozone.

It also joined the Schengen zone, in which people can travel without border controls.

US fears another Covid wave  

The highly contagious Omicron BA.2 sub-variant XBB.1.5 has become responsible for over 40 per cent of the recent Covid19 cases in the United States, revealed data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Though many public health experts are expressing concern about the rising Covid cases in China, infectious disease, several experts are increasingly worried about the doubling super variant, XBB.1.5, reported Reuters.

“Ironically, probably the worst variant that the world is facing right now is actually XBB,” said Dr. Michael

Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, in a recent interview with Reuters.

Osterholm added that seven of the 10 states of the US where cases and hospitalisations are rising are in the Northeast, concurrent with an increase of XBB cases there, he said.

Recombinants of the BA.2 variant, XBB and XBB.1.5, together accounted for 44.1 per cent of the total cases in the country for the week ended December 31.

For the week ended December 24, XBB.1.5 had made up 21.7 per cent of the total cases. XBB was first identified in India in August. It quickly become dominant there, as well as in Singapore. It has since evolved into a family of subvariants including XBB.1 and XBB.1.5.

Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University, said XBB.1.5 is different from its family members because it has an additional mutation that makes it bind better to cells.

“The virus needs to bind tightly to cells to be more efficient at getting in and that could help the virus be a little bit more efficient at infecting people,” Pekosz said.