(TAN): Rio de Janeiro’s famous annual Carnival parade of flamboyant samba schools will not be held in February. Rio’s League of Samba Schools (LIESA), responsible for organizing the event announced the postponement of the event as Brazil deals with the second-deadliest coronavirus outbreak in the world. A new date for the event has not been announced, reports said.
“We came to the conclusion that the event had to be postponed,” said Jorge Castanheira, the president of LIESA. “It’s increasingly difficult to have Carnival without a vaccine. There is no way to have Carnival without safety.”
Brazil’s first confirmed coronavirus case was on February 26, one day after this year’s Carnival ended. As the number of virus cases kept soaring, speculations had also been mounting that authorities would have to cancel or postpone the Carnival in 2021.
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Rio’s City Hall is yet to announce a decision about the Carnival street parties, known as “bloco”, that also take place across the city. But its tourism promotion agency said in a statement to The Associated Press on September 17 that without a coronavirus vaccine, it is uncertain when large public events can resume.
“Carnival is a party upon which many humble workers depend. The samba schools are community institutions, and the parades are just one detail of all that,” Luiz Antonio Simas, a historian who specialises in Rio’s Carnival, was quoted by the media . “An entire cultural and productive chain was disrupted by Covid.”
Brazil has recorded 4.66 million cases of COVID-19 and infections and nearly 140,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University with Rio de Janeiro being the second-hardest hit state after Sao Paulo.
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