RIO DE JANEIRO – In a normal year, Rio de Janeiro’s Sambadrome would preparing for its great moment of the year: the world’s most famous Carnival parade.
But a week before what should be the start of Carnival, the pandemic has replaced pageantry, with the great celebration put on hold until next year as Rio struggles to quash a rise in COVID-19 cases.
The Rio mayor’s office opened a drive-thru immunization station Saturday at the Sambadrome, where a line of cars queued up on a broad avenue built for floats. “This is usually a place of pleasure.
Today it is too, because we are exercising an act of citizenship and we are opening the Sambadrome to vaccinate, ” said Paulo Roberto Machado, a 68-year-old nurse who teaches at the Veiga de Almeida