No celebration – as long as there is a plague: Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is canceling its famous carnival for the second year in a row, due to the increase in the number of people infected with Corona and the threat of the arrival of the Omicron strain. This was announced by the mayor yesterday.
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The mayor, Eduardo Faas, announced after a meeting with health authorities that the city is canceling the event which attracts hundreds of thousands of passers-by every year. “The street carnival, by its very nature, due to its democratic aspect, does not allow for any possibility of supervision and control,” Faas said live on the Internet.
Other cities in Brazil are also canceling their carnival processions. Last week, the northeastern city of Salvador announced it was canceling the event. Blue Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, has also decided to move the procession to the Formula 1 Interlegos track, the newspaper Paula de San Paolo reported.
The number of people infected with corona in Brazil is on the rise again. The Ministry of Health reported yesterday 18,759 infections per day, and 175 deaths. About 170 Omicron cases were approved in the country last week, up from 32 weeks earlier.
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