LThe carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, scheduled for the end of February, have been postponed to April due to the new wave of Covid-19. The new scheduled date is April 21, which marks the start of a long holiday weekend. “The town halls of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have decided to postpone the parades of samba schools” due to the current situation of the pandemic in Brazil and the need “to preserve lives”, announced in a press release the authorities of the two largest Brazilian cities.
The decision to postpone the sambadrome parades in Rio, which attract tourists from all over the world, as well as those in São Paulo, was announced after a virtual meeting between mayors, their health secretaries and representatives of samba schools in the two states. Brazil, the second worst-hit country in the world by the pandemic with more than 622,000 deaths, broke its daily record for infections this week with 204,854 new cases recorded in one day.
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Samba schools lend their support
For Daniel Soranz, the Secretary of Health of Rio de Janeiro, “it is a necessary postponement”. “We will have much more security to carry out (the carnival) at the end of April”, he declared, estimating that it will be very “difficult” for the current wave to continue until April. Leagues representing samba schools in Rio and São Paulo said they supported the authorities’ decision. “It’s the right attitude, it has the full support of the samba schools and we hope that on April 21 we can have a party full of joy as the carnival demands,” said Sideni Carriuolo, president of the league. São Paulo samba schools, who attended the discussions with the authorities.
Samba schools, neighborhood organizations with up to 4,000 members each, spend months preparing their parades consisting of elaborate carriages, thousands of handcrafted costumes, with dancers and musicians rehearsing for months to shine before the jurors of the sambadrome. The street carnival in both cities had already been canceled earlier this month due to the health situation. Brazil has vaccinated nearly 70% of its 213 million people with two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.