While New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says that New York City will honour its health care workers and first responders with a ticker tape parade once it’s safe to hold large gatherings again, the news is more dire for some of the world’s most iconic events.

Spain has called off the Running of the Bulls in July, the US scrapped the national spelling bee in June and Germany has cancelled Oktoberfest in September, suggesting that the effort to beat back the coronavirus and return to normal could be a long way off.

Previously, the once-a-decade Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany was postponed until 2022.

A myriad of smaller-scale summer events, such as Crop Over in Barbados and Carnival in Antigua have also recently issued cancellation notices.

In rare contrast, Denmark’s Tivoli Gardens amusement park in Copenhagen says it will reopen on May 11, signalling a move by many countries in Europe to begin re-opening in stages.

In the US, one state after another — mostly ones led by Republican governors — have begun taking steps to get back to business, such as the reopening of select public beaches in Florida, South Carolina and California to enthusiastic crowds.

However, some business owners in the US who got the go-ahead to reopen are hesitating, in a sign that commerce won’t necessarily bounce back right away.

In hard-hit New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is bracing for a US $100 million shortfall. The Metropolitan Opera has cancelled the rest of its season, stopped paying the orchestra and chorus, and launched an emergency fundraising drive.

The New York-based James Beard Foundation has raised $4.3 million to save independent restaurants nationwide from going out of business because of the pandemic.

Mark Lebos, owner of Strong Gym in Savannah, Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp announced that gyms and salons can reopen this week, said it would be professional negligence to do so right now.

“We are not going to be a vector of death and suffering,” he said.

With the crisis easing but far from over in Europe, small shops in Berlin reopened, and restrictions were also relaxed in Denmark and Austria. In France, long lines formed outside the few McDonald’s drive-thrus that started serving customers again.

Still, many employees and customers were uneasy.

“Of course, I’m happy that I can open again and we can keep our heads above water,” said Galina Hooge, who opened her small Berlin toy store for the first time in over a month. But she worried that some Germans still aren’t taking the outbreak seriously. “Relaxing the rules doesn’t mean that everything is over. It’s not over by a long stretch,” she said.

With deaths and infections still rising around the world, the push to reopen has set off warnings from health authorities that the crisis that has killed well over 170,000 people globally is far from over and that relaxing the stay-at-home orders too quickly could enable the virus to come surging back.

As such, Germany called off the centuries-old Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich, which draws about 6 million visitors each year. The event has previously only been cancelled during the two world wars; during a period of hyperinflation in Germany in 1923; and twice because of cholera outbreaks in the 1800s.

“We agreed that the risk is simply too high,” Bavarian governor Markus Soeder said.

In Italy, Premier Giuseppe Conte confirmed that businesses can start reopening on May 4 but dashed any hopes of a full end to the country’s strict lockdown any time soon, saying: “A decision of that kind would be irresponsible.”