When it’s time for another new year, the public plaza outside CentralWorld Mall is one of the places in Bangkok that puts up an eye-popping fireworks display that thousands used to come to watch. The last two years, however, I have viewed the spectacle from the safety of my condominium’s 38th floor, which gives a panoramic view of the city and its several celebrations. The terrace has been crowded both times but everyone was masked and standing two metres apart from each other.

CentralWorld itself was utterly empty and desolate, like a clown whose mother has passed away. I can guarantee, sight unseen, that you would have seen the same eerie landscape in other places that customarily throng with crowds—Times Square in New York, Oxford Street in London, the Taj Mahal, St Peter’s Square in Rome.