There’s a real chance the Sydney New Year’s Eve fireworks could be cancelled due to… *stares out the window, waves arms and whispers through a face mask* all this.
Local councils all around the harbour are waiting on the City of Sydney to make a final decision before they decide whether to allow gatherings by the water, but things are looking down at the moment.
“It would be incredibly sad if Sydney New Year’s Eve cannot go ahead, but that is a real possibility we’re facing,” Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore told the Sydney Morning Herald
“The community’s health and safety is paramount and it may not be responsible to encourage large crowds to our foreshore.”
Much like we’ve been told to call off large gatherings for the time being, experts agree people in Sydney should be following the same advice five months down the line.
“They shouldn’t go ahead, for several reasons,” UNSW Professor Mary-Louise McLaws, one of Australia’s top epidemiologists, told 9 News.
“It sends a message we’re out of the woods, when we’re not.”
But some are still pushing for the celebration to go ahead.
On Friday, NSW Tourism Minister Stuart Ayres told 2GB the state government is hoping there can still be some kind of fireworks.
“After such a putrid 2020 we should definitely be having a celebration to start in the new year,” he said.
“Perhaps they don’t do two sets of fireworks and nine and at midnight, they maybe even do a scaled-down version of the fireworks.”
It seems that nobody wants to be the one to cancel the fireworks themselves, but unless someone figures out an alternative to having large gatherings across the city, the safest bet might be to celebrate at home this year.
