RIO DE JANEIRO – Rio de Janeiro’s samba schools usually spend the year furiously sewing costumes for the city's blowout Carnival celebration.
Now, nimble fingers are working to protect lives instead, making medical outfits for hospital workers who face a surge of coronavirus patients.
Dr. Wille Baracho on Tuesday carried rolls of fabric into the Unidos de Padre Miguel samba school's workshop in the Vila Vintem favela.
Inside, seamstresses perched on plastic chairs busily transformed beige and pale yellow fabric into medical wear. The initiative started with Baracho and one of his colleagues at a nearby hospital emergency room where they have seen a shortage of materials.