Brazil: Rio de Janeiro Hosts First Post-Coronavirus Carnival

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, traditionally home to the world’s largest carnival festival, held the celebration over the weekend for the first time in two years after being forced to cancel the event amid the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Brazil’s GloboNews reported on Monday.

Carnival is a festive holiday observed in Roman Catholic communities in the days and hours before the austere season of Lent (a 40-day period of abstinence) begins. Rio de Janeiro typically hosts the world’s largest carnival celebration in the form of an all-night samba dance parade inside the city’s “Sambadrome,” or designated event space, complete with elaborate floats.

An estimated 75,000 people attended Rio de Janeiro’s carnival from April 22 to April 23. The two-day festivity marked the first official carnival celebration in the coastal city of 6.7 million people since February 2020.

“There were concerns carnival would be axed again this year, after Rio authorities canceled it last year and then postponed this edition by two months from the traditional dates — just before the Catholic season of Lent — over fears of the Omicron variant spreading,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on April 23.

“But with more than 75 percent of Brazil’s 213 million people now fully vaccinated, the average weekly Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus] death toll has plunged from more than 3,000 a year ago to around 100 — allowing the show to go on,” the news agency observed.

All participants and spectators of the “Sambadrome” parade this year were required to show proof of vaccination against the Chinese coronavirus before entering the event space. One float that appeared in the “Sambadrome” over the weekend appeared to mock Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, depicting him as being forced to receive a dose of an unspecified Chinese coronavirus vaccine and then transforming into a reptilian creature.

Bolsonaro has refused to take a coronavirus vaccine, citing the fact that he has overcome a coronavirus infection and thus considers himself naturally immunized. The lizard is refers to a comment Bolsonaro made in late 2020 about pharmaceutical companies forcing patients to sign agreements not to sue over adverse reactions.

“In the Pfizer contract it’s very clear: ‘we’re not responsible for any side effects.’ If you turn into a crocodile, it’s your problem,” Bolsonaro joked. Leftist news outlets accused Bolsonaro of claiming that the vaccine turns people into reptiles.

President Bolsonaro shared the Carnaval video clip on his official Twitter page on April 25, laughing and remarking, “what a bad presentation!”

Past carnivals in Rio de Janeiro traditionally generated tremendous business for the local economy, “moving some four billion reais ($800 million) and creating at least 45,000 jobs,” according to AFP. Merchants selling goods at this year’s carnival in Rio de Janeiro told the news agency business was less vibrant than in previous years. Street vendor Maria Vitoria Souza, 18, who sold beverages outside the “Sambadrome” from April 22 to April 23, said sales “could have been better.”

“Carnival’s still not back 100 percent, because there are no ‘blocos,'” Souza acknowledged.

“Blocos” are “massive carnival street parties, which city authorities nixed this year,” AFP noted.

Rio de Janeiro’s police force dispatched over 10,000 police officers across the metropolis over the weekend to monitor security conditions as locals reveled in their first carnival in 26 months.

“The Military Police arrested 444 people during the extended holiday of Tiradentes and São Jorge in Rio de Janeiro — most of them for robberies and thefts in the surroundings of the Sambadrome. In addition, 47 teenagers were apprehended,” Brazil’s GloboNews reported on April 25.