The Hanoi administration has decided to put on a fireworks display at only one venue to welcome the 2022 Lunar New Year on the evening of January 31.

Fireworks will go off at Thong Nhat Park in the city center for 15 minutes, starting at 0:00 on February 1, according to a plan announced by the municipal People’s Committee on Sunday. 

Funding for the show will be contributed by local businesses.

This is the second year that city authorities have planned to organize the fireworks display to usher in the Lunar New Year at only one venue, instead of at several sites in all of its 30 districts and towns as they did before the onset of COVID-19.

Hanoi canceled the New Year fireworks and countdown celebrations this year, the second year in a row, due to the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead, the municipal administration organized several celebrations online.

In a recent directive, the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat requested localities take the actual situation of local COVID-19 outbreaks into consideration before organizing pyrotechnic displays to welcome New Year and Lunar New Year, to be celebrated in the last week of January and the first week of February.

The COVID-19 outbreaks remain unpredictable in Hanoi as around 2,000 new cases are detected daily these days, including a record high of 2,045 on Sunday. 

Almost all inner districts have raised their COVID-19 alert levels and restricted events and public gatherings.

The capital city has logged 49,833 infections since the fourth wave of the pandemic hit Vietnam on April 27, 2021.

All adults in the city have been fully vaccinated, according to the national COVID-19 vaccination portal.

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