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Rio carnival victim of Covid-19

2022-01-26T10:34:52.726Z


After long hesitation, the city of Rio de Janeiro resigned itself to postponing the parade of samba schools in April under pressure from health authorities worried about the explosion of Covid-19 cases due to the Omicron variant in Brazil.


The authorities of Rio de Janeiro decided on Tuesday January 4 to suspend the traditional massive street parades of the next carnival due to the progression of the Omicron variant linked to the end of year celebrations.

"The street carnival as it took place until 2020 (...) will not take place in 2022"

, said the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, in a live broadcast on social networks, advancing the difficulties of controlling these festivities in a period of growing Covid-19 infections.

As early as last November, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro declared that he was opposed to the return of the Rio carnival at the end of February, after the cancellation of the previous edition due to the pandemic.

There remained the parade of samba schools in the Sambadrome.

Canceled or postponed?

It is eventually postponed.

Scheduled for the end of February, it will finally take place from April 20 to 30, with the best samba schools parading on April 22 and 23.

The organizers have announced that the order of school parades at the Sambadrome will be maintained and that all tickets already purchased will be valid for the new dates.

The decision was difficult. Because if the Carnival is above all a celebration, it is also an essential windfall for the economy of the city, with its tens of thousands of tourists flocking from all over the world. Above all, it supports a multitude of poor families who prepare parades in samba schools. “

I am sad for the families who will suffer the consequences, for the huge range of professionals who derive their income from Carnival

,” lamented Catia Drumond, president of the Imperatriz Leopoldinense school. “

But we will continue to rehearse and sing (…). We will not let popular culture die

.”

For the city of Rio, which is almost bankrupt, this event is a real financial windfall: it attracts 1.5 million tourists each year who fill hotels, bars and restaurants and inject nearly 800 million euros into the local economy. .

In addition to Rio, the cities of Sao Paulo, or Bahia and Olinda in the Northeast, have also canceled or postponed their traditional carnivals.

Public health must prevail over economic interests

”, argued the doctors while Brazil is one of the countries most affected by the pandemic with more than 620,000 dead.

Read alsoCarnival in Rio: our tips for enjoying the most famous popular festival in the world

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-01-26

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