© Mauro Pimentel
In the Rio de Janeiro Sambadrome. The 2022 show has been postponed for two months due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Joy will wait. Scheduled for the end of February, the carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have been postponed due to the new wave of Covid-19. The new scheduled date, April 21, marks the start of a long holiday weekend in Brazil.
The festival, which attracts two million tourists each year, hoped to make a comeback, from February 25 to March 1, following two years of waiting due to the pandemic.
“The town halls of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have decided to postpone the parades of the samba schools” end of April, “due to the current pandemic situation 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 and Sao Paulo was announced following a virtual meeting between the mayors, their secretaries of health and representatives of samba schools in the two states. The street carnival in both cities had already been canceled earlier this month due to the health situation.
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.
“It is a necessary postponement, we will have much more security to carry out (the carnival) at the end of Aprilsaid Rio de Janeiro Health Secretary Daniel Soranz. Following the curve of the pandemic in other countries, we think it is very difficult for the current wave to last until April”.
“The Most Beautiful Show on Earth”
“We respect science and we are going to take balanced and adequate measures to, at the same time, respect a party that is the greatest cultural and popular manifestation in Brazil and that has a significant impact on the economy of Rio de Janeiro.“, declared the mayor of this city Edouardo Paes, fervent admirer of the carnival.
Leagues representing samba schools in Rio and Sao 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 requires”, said Sideni Carriuolo, president of the league of samba schools of Sao Paulo, who attended the discussions with the authorities.
“The Rio Carnival is ‘the greatest spectacle on Earth’, synonymous with joy, and which enchants everyone”, said a statement from the League of Samba Schools of Rio, adding that the “life and health of the public and participants” was equally important.
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.
Those who had already bought tickets for the February parades will be able to use them in April and a telephone line made available to answer questions from ticket holders.