In many places, New Year's Eve celebrations were muted or canceled for the second straight year due to a surge of coronavirus infections, this time driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.
PARIS Sorrow for the dead and dying, fear of more infections to come and hopes for an end to the coronavirus pandemic were again the bittersweet cocktail with which the world said good riddance to 2021 and ushered in 2022.