By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN Associated Press
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NEW YORK — St. Patrick’s Day celebrations across the country are back after a two-year hiatus, including the nation’s largest in New York City, in a sign of growing hope that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic may be over.

The holiday served as a key marker in the outbreak’s progression, with parades celebrating Irish heritage among the first big public events to be called off in 2020. An ominous acceleration in infections quickly cascaded into broad shutdowns.

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The full-fledged return of New York’s parade on Thursday coincided with the city’s wider reopening. Major mask and vaccination rules were recently lifted.

The city’s famed Fifth Avenue was awash with green, as hordes of revelers took to sidewalks amid damp skies to take part in the tradition for the first time in two years.

Kathy Brucia, 65, who is Irish and was clad in green, including a shamrock on her cheek, has been attending the parade for more than three decades — except the past two years.

“The pandemic,” she said as the first marching band passed by Thursday morning. “I don’t think it’s over. But I think a lot of people feel like, wow, we could finally go to a parade and not worry. But I think everybody has to worry.”

The day held great importance for a city still reeling from the outbreak.

“Psychologically, it means a lot,” said Sean Lane, the chair of the parade’s organizing group. “New York really needs this.”

Mike Carty, the Ireland-born owner of Rosie O’Grady’s, a restaurant and pub in the Theater District, agreed.

“This is the best thing that happened to us in two years,” he said. “We need the business, and this really kicked it off.”

The South’s largest St. Patrick’s Day celebration made a big comeback in Savannah, Georgia, where Irish immigrants and their descendants have held parades since 1824. After nearly two centuries, the holiday has become Savannah’s most profitable tourist draw, a street party for hundreds of thousands still thirsty after Mardi Gras.

Tori Purvis, 46, arrived before dawn to claim a spot near the start of the parade along with her 3-year-old son, Tristan, still wearing his pajamas decorated with leprechaun hats and rainbows. Purvis said she’s been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah since childhood, and the only years she recalls not showing up were 2020 and 2021 when the pandemic forced the parade to be canceled.