Brazil: Coronavirus puts a stop to the carnivals of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo

In the midst of the new wave of infections by him coronavirus, its principles Rio de Janeiro and his Sao Paulo in Brazil announced in the early hours of Saturday (22/1) that his parades carnival, which were scheduled to take place at the end of February, are postponed until at least April and more specifically on the 21st of that month.

The municipalities of its two largest and most populous cities Brazil took this decision “because of the current situation with the pandemic and the need to protect lives and join forces to increase the vaccination rate of citizens throughout the territory of Brazil”. The decision was made after a digital meeting of mayors, state health ministers and representatives of samba schools in the two states. The news was announced jointly by the mayors, Ricardo Nunes (Sao Paulo) and Edward Paes (Rio de Janeiro).

Carnival events, a lucrative source of revenue as they attract huge crowds and are a magnet for tourists, were already postponed earlier this month due to the epidemiological situation. Street parties and other activities were banned. Only the parades in the stadiums were left, but even these were considered dangerous by those in charge.

The Brazilian Ministry of Health announced on Friday (21/1) that in the previous 24 hours 166,539 cases of SARS-CoV-2 were confirmed and another 358 patients died due to complications of Covid-19.

The giant country of about 213 million inhabitants records one of the heaviest death toll from the new coronavirus pandemic in the world in absolute terms: it counts up to this stage 622,563 deaths out of a total of 23,751,782 infections.

As the onslaught of the most contagious Omicron variant continues, the Brazil broke the record number of cases in 24 hours this week, recording 204,854. By yesterday, almost 70% of citizens had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.