「リオのカーニバル」延期、コロナで開催見通し立たず

【リオデジャネイロＡＦＰ＝時事】来年2月に開催予定のブラジル・リオデジャネイロのカーニバルが、新型コロナウイルス感染症（COVID-19）の影響で無期限延期されることが決まった。主催者が24日、発表した。（写真はブラジル・リオデジャネイロで行われた今年のカーニバル）
　世界的に有名なリオのカーニバルを主催するリオデジャネイロ・サンバスクール独立連盟（ＬＩＥＳＡ）のジョルジ・カスタニェイラ代表は、「イベントを延期しなければならないという結論に達した。とにかく、２月には開催できない。サンバスクールには、２月までに準備を整える時間も資金も組織もない」と記者団に語った。
　世界中から数百万人の観客を集めるリオのカーニバルは、伝染病のパンデミック（世界的な大流行）の中では疫学的に悪夢のようなイベントといえる。主会場「サンボドロモ」では露出の多い衣装を着たダンサーや打楽器隊のパレードに大勢の見物客が集まり、街路も踊る人々でごった返す。密接した状態でのパーティーが夜通し続くのだ。
　ただ、今回の中止発表は、ＬＩＥＳＡが主催する名門サンバスクールのパレードコンテストについてのみで、「ブロコス」と呼ばれる路上パーティーは対象外。リオデジャネイロ市当局は、ブロコスの開催を許可するかどうかをまだ明らかにしていない。
　ブラジルの新型コロナ感染者は累計４７０万人、死者は約１４万人に上っている。死者数は米国に次いで世界で２番目に多い。感染拡大のペースは７月のピーク時からやや鈍化しているものの、保健省の統計によると過去２週間の１日当たり平均感染者数は３万人近く、憂慮すべき状況が続いている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/09/25-13:11）

Rio de Janeiro's world-famous carnival parades became the latest casualty of the coronavirus pandemic Thursday 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.
The event draws millions of tourists from around Brazil and the world to the beachside city each year.
The city'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 (LIESA).
We just can't do it in February. The samba schools won't have the time or financial and organizational resources to be ready, he told journalists after a plenary meeting by the group's directors.
It's not a cancellation, it's a postponement. We are looking for an alternative solution, something we can do when it's safe to contribute to the city.... But we aren't certain enough to set a date.
- Planning problems -
In reality, carnival comprises numerous events, from the elite samba school parade contest organized by LIESA to less-formal blocos, or street parties.
LIESA's announcement applies only to the samba school competition. City authorities have not yet announced whether blocos will be allowed.
Speculation had been mounting that authorities would have to cancel or postpone carnival in 2021, given that Brazil is the country with the second-highest death toll in the pandemic, after the United States, and is still struggling to bring the virus under control.
Brazil has registered 4.7 million infections and nearly 140,000 deaths from Covid-19.
And while the spread of the virus has slowed somewhat since its July peak, the numbers are still alarmingly high in Brazil, with an average of nearly 30,000 new cases and 735 new deaths per day over the past two weeks, according to health ministry figures.
Brazil has struggled to set a cohesive policy to deal with the pandemic.
Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has railed against lockdown measures as a catastrophe for the economy, and downplayed the disease as a little flu, despite being forced into quarantine for nearly three weeks when he caught it himself in July.
Rio de Janeiro has been the state hit second-hardest in Brazil, after Sao Paulo, the country's industrial hub.
With 18,000 people killed so far, if Rio state were a country, it would have the world's second-highest mortality rate from Covid-19, at 104 deaths per 100,000 residents.