Rio de Janeiro, Sept 25 (AFP/APP):Rio de Janeiro’s world-famous carnival parades became the latest casualty of the coronavirus pandemic as officials announced they were indefinitely postponing the February 2021 edition, with Brazil still reeling from Covid-19. Rio’s carnival, the world’s biggest, is an epidemiologist’s nightmare in a pandemic: an extended festival of tightly packed crowds dancing through the streets and flocking to the city’s iconic “Sambadrome” for massive parades featuring scantily clad dancers, small armies of drummers and all-night partying at close quarters. Motorway Abuse Case: Woman’s reason for going out at night came to light The event draws millions of tourists from around Brazil and the world to the beachside city each year. Rio’s elite samba schools, which typically spend the entire year preparing their elaborate parades, had said in July it would be difficult to organize the event for February 2021 if there were still no certainty of a vaccine for the new coronavirus by late September. Meeting again to assess the situation, “we came to the conclusion that the event had to be postponed,” said Jorge Castanheira, the president of the group that organizes the annual parades, the Independent League of Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro … Continue reading Rio postpones world-famous carnival over Covid-19