MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rio street carnival called off yet again due to covid-19

The street parades which lure up to 12 million people are “unfeasible,” according to Paes

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro has decided to cancel its widely famous carnival street celebrations due to the covid-19 pandemic, which,has made such a large gathering “unfeasible,” according to Mayor Eduardo Paes.

“Faced with this scenario in the health area we got in touch with the league of street troupes and I informed them about how unfeasible street carnival was for the second consecutive year,” Paes said during a live broadcast on social media.

However, the traditional carnival parade at the Marqués de Sapucaí Sambadrome has not yet been canceled and, according to Paes, it is still possible to find a way to go on with it, albeit under sanitary protocols.

Paes explained that the decision to cancel the street carnival, which dumps lures over 12 million people into the streets of Rio for a month, was due to pressure from sponsors, who were due to disburse about R $ 40 million (US $ 8 million) this week.

Carnival street celebrations had already been called off at Salvador (Bahia) and Fortaleza (Ceará). Meanwhile, São Paulo's city council has left the final word up to a scientific committee.

Like Rio, São Paulo intends to carry on with plans for festivities at a sambadrome, where the same protocols in force for professional football matches would apply. South America's largest city is also going through an increase in the number of COVID-19 infections, probably due to the circulation of the Omicron variant. Positive results went up from 1% of all tests in mid December to 13% last week.

Nevertheless, hospitalizations remained at one of the lowest levels since the start of the pandemic, but the number of people in intensive care units in the city has more than doubled since Christmas, from 11 to 24.