For two years running now, COVID-19 has shut down one of the world’s biggest public parties.
While New Orleans continues to plan for the return of Mardi Gras in 2022 after a COVID-induced hiatus in 2021, Rio de Janeiro has announced it will cancel its Carnival street parades for a second year in a row.
The announcement came Tuesday morning from Mayor Eduardo Paes via a livestream on YouTube.
“We had a meeting today with the people from the ‘blocos’ (organized street parties), and we informed them that the street Carnival, which didn’t take place in 2021, cannot happen this year due to the epidemiological data that we have,” Paes said.
“It would be very difficult to organize a street carnival.”
The annual Sapucaí Carnival, a parade featuring performance by the samba schools in the city, will still roll while following local health protocols.
Another 18,759 new COVID cases were reported on Tuesday alone by the health ministry of Brazil, along with 175 more deaths.
Of course the major question from New Orleanians in regards to Rio’s decision is could the Carnival season in the Big Easy fall victim to the pandemic for a second straight year as well?
So far, the Mardi Gras parades are still a go in New Orleans, though not without some route changes.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced last month that there would be a consolidation of the myriad different traditional parade routes, though not due to COVID.
The changes are a product of a shortage of officers at NOPD.
“The big news and the best news is that Mardi Gras is returning to the city of New Orleans and to the World in 2022. It is happening,” Cantrell said at a December 21 news conference. “We have been working very hard and diligently working on public safety.”
However, with the heart of the season still a couple of months away, could COVID-induced changes or cancellations still be on the horizon? The latest COVID variant, Omicron, continues to cause new peaks in daily diagnoses of the virus.
So it remains to be seen whether or not the final word on Mardi Gras 2022 has been spoken.
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