The Rose Parade is back.After the coronavirus forced its first cancellation since World War II last year, the whimsical, flower-filled procession is returning to Pasadena on Saturday.The parade begins at 8 a.m. Pacific, with actor and television host LeVar Burton serving as grand marshal. The theme is “Dream. Achieve. Believe.” While the return of the Rose Parade is seen by many as a cheerful respite from two painful pandemic years, it is clouded by a dramatic surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant.As hundreds of thousands of people from across the country were expected to line Colorado Boulevard on Saturday, nearly 1 in 4 people in Los Angeles County who are being tested are positive for a coronavirus infection, and daily totals of new, confirmed infections are doubling every two days.On Thursday, Kaiser Permanente canceled plans to have front-line medical staffers participate in the Rose Parade.“We must prioritize the health and safety of our front-line medical staff and ensure we are able to treat patients during this recent surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant,” the healthcare system said in a statement. Kaiser had planned to have 20 medical workers riding and walking in front of its float, which is called “A Healthier Future” and features the figures of four children, including one wearing a stethoscope and caring for a teddy bear named Booster. The float will still be in the parade. Numerous health and safety measures are being taken by event organizers, including the cancellation of indoor events leading up to the parade.“All the planning that we have done has positioned us well to be able to host the Rose Parade in a safe and healthy way,” said David Eads, executive director of the Tournament of Roses.“The overall sense of renewal and rebirth of the Rose Parade is forefront with everybody. We’ve come up with a couple of terms for it: ‘One parade, two years in the making,’ and ‘The bloom is back.’”The Tournament of Roses is requiring the 6,000-plus parade participants, including people on floats, marching bands and equestrians, to provide proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test within 72 hours of the start of the event.Parade spectators ages 12 and up in ticketed areas, including grandstands, also will have to provide proof of vaccination or a negative test within 72 hours. Ticket holders ages 18 and up will have to provide photo identification, and all attendees ages 2 and up in those areas will be required to wear a mask.Along the rest of the 5.5-mile route, where people can just walk up and watch, vaccination and negative test results will not be checked.“What we’re asking is they take personal responsibility,” staying in family pods, social distancing as much as possible and wearing masks, Eads said. This year’s parade will feature 43 floats, 20 marching bands and 18 equestrian units, according to the Tournament of Roses. Michelle Van Slyke, senior vice president of marketing and sales for the UPS Store, said in an interview that preparations for the company’s float — which is called “Rise, Shine & Read!” and features a bespectacled, bright yellow rooster named Charlie reading to a group of chicks — has been going on for about a year. In 2020, float planning was already underway when the Rose Parade pulled the plug on the event because of the pandemic. But the UPS Store, she said, “had our hands full” as an essential business that stayed open amid lockdowns.This week, as the final decorations were being applied to the float, she said that “safety is the number one priority” and that masking and social distancing have been essential. The company’s float is enormous: 35 feet tall and 55 feet long. Van Slyke said it weighs about 24 tons, with 12 moving parts and 130,000 flowers.“If you’re going to do it, do it in a way that’s going to be fun and magical,” she said. “We all know we’re in the life’s-too-short category these days, and we want to bring some brightness after everything we’ve been through these last two years.” Van Slyke grew up in San Bernardino and came to the Rose Parade year after year with her grandfather, a construction worker who came annually, even if he was by himself. They would spend the night along the parade route with chorizo and egg burritos and hot chocolate in thermoses. “My grandfather would just be ecstatic if he knew I was involved in putting a float together,” she said.