Covid-19: Brazilians deprived of Rio carnival for the first time
Instead of the carnival, the “sambodrome” has been transformed into a vaccination area.
REUTERS - RICARDO MORAES
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Brazilians live their first year without a carnival.
In Rio, despite two attempts to ban it, the festivities could never be prevented.
But, this year, with the coronavirus pandemic, the samba schools will not parade.
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A stone's throw from the "sambodrome" [the famous avenue surrounded by bleachers where the parade of the best samba schools takes place], the hangar of the Império da Tijuca samba school is very quiet for a Tuesday carnival, reports
our correspondent in Rio de Janeiro
,
Sarah Cozzolino
.
In the middle of the tanks of the last year, Jordã Pereira, is nostalgic.
“
When you arrive and look to the back of the hangar, you feel sadness,” he
says.
Because it's a part of our culture, that we normally work on it all year round.
"
In charge of the rhythmic direction, at this time usually, Jordã would be solicited from all sides by his 240 percussionists.
But
the cancellation of the carnival
went without saying for Antônio Teles, president of the school.
“
I think that maintaining the carnival would have been a lack of respect for the victims of this hurricane which passed around the world.
It wouldn't be fair to do samba, to jump in all directions having fun with so many deaths,
”he said.
Nearly 70,000 people make a living from carnival
Dressmakers, carpenters, sculptors… Almost 70,000 people make a living from carnival.
Most come from working-class neighborhoods and have had to put aside these incomes this year.
Guilherme Estevão, artistic director of the school, was unemployed from March to September.
“
Here, for the Imperio, it was very difficult,” he
explains.
We tried to imagine some solutions to mitigate the effects, but we couldn't keep the whole team, continue to pay salaries, because the school had no income.
"
Samba schools have distributed food baskets to families in need.
But the end of state emergency aid is yet another blow.
Vaccination campaign stopped
After a sluggish start, the
vaccine campaign
was interrupted last week in various cities in Brazil due to lack of doses.
Affected by a second very virulent wave, Brazil, the second most bereaved country in the world with more than 239,000 deaths, has so far only authorized two vaccines, CoronaVac and that of the Anglo-Swedish group AstraZeneca.
More than 5 million of the 212 million Brazilians have already received at least one dose.
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