More restrictions as Poprad blasted 2020 to kingdom come

The normally joyous and inspiring fireworks of New Year over Poprad seemed bombastic and bad-tempered, almost as if we were trying to blast 2020 to kingdom come.

For hours before midnight this beleaguered mountainside city shook and reverberated to what sounded like bombs and the rattle of heavy gunfire. And by the time the clocks turned the year from hell upside down, the air was thick with cordite.

And a ghastly pall of smoke hung over the tenements and high rises like gathering ghosts.

Maybe it was the thunder and rattle of the fireworks drowning them out but we didn’t even hear a church bell ring.

No. We weren’t welcoming in a new year, we were shooting down one that had gone so dreadfully wrong.

The fact that the Slovak government had felt it right to announce a few hours earlier that they were being forced to tighten restrictions on our lives as a surge in new coronavirus infections hit ‘record levels’.

Health Minister Marek Krajci had just said the new restrictions include a ban on meeting of people from different households, including relatives.

Ski resorts and churches had to be closed too, he said.

Slovakia has 179,543 confirmed cases with 2,138 deaths. The increase hit a record of 6,315 cases last Wednesday.

The new clampdown comes in to force on New Year’s Day at 5:00pm and remains until January 24.

“Given that the critical epidemiological situation in Slovakia and the measures adopted on December 12 have not had sufficient effect, I’m glad that the cabinet unanimously agreed on stricter measures,” Health Minister Marek Krajčí was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the pandemic caused London’s annual New Years’ Eve fireworks display to be cancelled.

But there was a light and fireworks display over the River Thames broadcast by the BBC just before midnight. It ended with David Attenborough asking everyone to work in 2021 to help our “fragile” planet.

In the Vatican City Pope Francis missed a New Year’s Eve prayer service. It was apparently because he was suffering back pain.

Pope Francis asked people to help those in need.

President Emmanuel Macron used his New Year’s speech to confirm a his health ministry tweet that shots would be offered to health care workers. There is a lot of scepticism in France over the safety of the new vaccines.

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