Brazil: Carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo postponed to April

Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the two largest cities in Brazil, announced this Friday the postponement, until April 21 and as a measure to stop the advance of the covid-19 pandemic, of the carnival samba school parades that were scheduled for February.

Both cities had already announced the suspension this year of the so-called rúa carnival, which is animated by comparsas and bands that parade for free before millions of people in the streets, and now they have chosen to postpone, “for a date with possible better sanitary conditions”, the carnival held within its sambodromes.

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The mayor’s offices initially considered that, because it was held in settings with restricted access such as sambadromes, where it would be possible to require a vaccination certificate and even negative proof of the covid-19 to the public, the parades of the samba schools would not contribute to aggravate the pandemic in Brazil.

But the record numbers of infections that Brazil has been registering in recent days due to the rapid spread of the omicron, a variant of the covid-19 contagious, forced them to choose to postpone the shows in their sambodromes.

The postponement of the event in the two largest cities of Brazil, one of the countries hardest hit by the covid-19 in the world, was announced after a meeting this Friday night between the mayors of Rio, Eduardo Paes, and Sao Paulo, Ricardo Nunes.

Both alleged that they chose to follow the recommendations of scientists, who consider it unwise to promote crowds of thousands of people at a time when, driven by the omicron variant, the covid registers record infections in Brazil.

Specialists believe that the numbers will continue to grow in the coming weeks and that the third wave of the pandemic will reach its peak in Brazil in February, when it will begin to subside, as has been happening in European countries that also registered record numbers of omicron infections.

The date chosen for the parades, April 21, corresponds to a Thursday that is a national holiday in Brazil, when the day of the independence leader Tiradentes is commemorated, so the granting of an additional municipal holiday on Friday, April 22, would allow the organization of a four-day carnival.

A member of the Grande Rio samba school performs during the first night of the Rio Carnival parade at the Marques de Sapucai Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on February 24, 2020. (Photo: AFP / CARL DE SOUZA) . (CARL DE SOUZA/)

DECISION RESPECTS SCIENCE BUT ALSO ECONOMY

But both mayors admitted that their decision to postpone the party also took into account that the festive event mobilizes the economy and generates employment and income for thousands of people, especially those with limited resources, who were already affected by the suspension of the carnival last year. for the pandemic.

“It was a decision we made based on a scientific reading, but we want to show that we respect science but that we also respect an activity that is important for the economy,” affirmed the mayor of Rio de Janeiro in statements to journalists.

“This is a postponement and not a suspension. We are aware that carnival is a party that mobilizes many people, mainly in the outskirts and in the most humble neighborhoods, who work all year for that”, he added.

The mayor of Rio clarified that the decision to postpone the carnival in the sambódromo does not mean that he is thinking of reversing his decision to suspend the carnival of comparas and bands in the streets.

“We still have to analyze that, but it will be a technical decision. The street carnival has very different characteristics. Their parades are not limited to carnival days and even start much earlier. We will analyze later if there will be conditions to allow it”, He said.

Both cities, in a joint statement, justified their decision by the need to “Respect the current scenario of the pandemic of the covid-19 in Brazil”.

According to the latest bulletin from the Ministry of Health, Brazil It has been registering a record average of 117,800 covid infections per day.

This is the highest average since the start of the pandemic, in February 2020, and an average 38 times higher than that registered less than a month ago, on December 23 (3,090 daily cases), when, before the arrival of the ómicron, the country celebrated the reduction in infections to its lowest level in 20 months.

According to the bulletin released this Friday by the Health portfolio, Brazil recorded in the last 24 hours 358 deaths from the covid-19 and 166,539 cases, which bring the total number of victims to 622,563 and the number of infections to 23,751,782 since the start of the pandemic.

These cumulative figures confirm Brazil as the second country in number of deaths from covid-19 in the world after the United States and as the third in number of infections after the North American nation and India.

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