Sadiq Khan has today announced that there will be no New Year's Eve fireworks display in London this year as a result of Covid.
Sadiq Khan has today announced that there will be no New Year’s Eve fireworks display in London this year as a result of Covid.
Sadiq Khan cancels London New Year’s Eve Fireworks Display
On LBC Radio this morning Sadiq Khan made the official announcement: “There will not be fireworks on New Year’s Eve this year, like in previous years” citing that London “simply can’t afford to have the numbers of people who congregate” for the fireworks display this year.”
The rule of six makes a potential large scale gathering of people impossible.
London also does not want to encourage people from outside the city to travel in exclusively for the event. This combination of factors has led to Sadiq Khan’s executive decision to cancel the display almost four months before they would even take place.
100,000 attended the event last year and a repeat of such numbers would likely cause a catastrophic rise in Covid cases and therefore the event was always likely to called off if a vaccine for Covid could not be found in time.
There is still hope of some sort of spectacle on New Year’s Eve this year though as the London Mayor said: “What we are working on is to do something that people can enjoy in the comfort and safety of their living rooms on TV. As soon as we manage to bottom that out I’ll be letting Londoners and people across the country know. We can’t afford to lose that slot because New Year’s Eve is a really great opportunity for the rest of the world to see how wonderful our city is. Particularly during a recession we need to continue investment in our city and people coming to London.”
Boris Johnson alongside other prominent ministers had previously denied that the Christmas season would be affected by Covid restrictions but the cancellation of this iconic global event suggests that Covid will still impact our lives going into the new year.
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