Sacramento New Year’s Eve fireworks show canceled due to COVID-19 omicron surge
The New Year’s Eve fireworks display that would typically ring in the new year for Sacramento with bright explosions over the Tower Bridge has been canceled for a second straight year due to rising COVID-19 activity, the city announced Monday.
“On the advice of public health officials, the City of Sacramento has made the difficult decision to cancel the New Year’s Eve Sky Spectacular on the Old Sacramento Waterfront due to the recent spread of the Omicron variant,” the City of Sacramento said in a statement. “We are hopeful for safer opportunities to gather in large groups in 2022.”
The city also canceled the event last year, as California faced its worst surge of the coronavirus pandemic in winter 2020.
Local health officials on Monday reported Sacramento County’s daily case rate has increased from 15.1 to 22.6 per 100,000 in the past five days, a 50% increase marking one of the steepest inclines of the nearly two-year pandemic.
The current surge is believed to be due to the highly contagious omicron variant, which Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week was making up more than half of all case samples recently tested for variants, overtaking the previously dominant delta variant.
In nearby Yolo County, health officials last week connected an outbreak of COVID-19 cases, with many of the infections confirmed as omicron, to a workplace holiday party in Davis.
This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 11:41 AM.
