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An almost empty Copacabana beach is seen on New Year’s Eve, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on December 31, 2020. Brazil rang in the New Year with Rio de Janeiro’s famous Copacabana beach almost empty, the usual swarms of revelers kept away by police due to the pandemic and marijuana protests against far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Rio often hosts one of the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve parties, but authorities canceled the festivities this year when Covid-19 swept the country. Photo by CARL DE SOUZA / AFP
RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil sounded in the New Year with Rio de Janeiro’s famous Copacabana beach nearly empty, the usual swarms of revelers kept away by police due to the pandemic, and protests against far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
Rio typically hosts one of the world’s biggest New Year’s Eve parties, but authorities canceled the festivities this year when Covid-19 swept the country.
“It was a complicated year, with this pandemic that has devastated the entire world,” said Claudio Miranda, a 29-year-old salesman who was part of the relatively small crowd gathered in Copacabana.
“But we have to celebrate life: our lives, the lives of our families, everyone who is still here. Even if our hearts ache for those who left us, ”he told AFP.
Covid-19 has killed nearly 195,000 people in Brazil, the second-highest death toll worldwide after the United States. The South American country of 212 million people is currently in the grip of a nasty second wave.
The cancellation of official festivities did not stop revelers from across Rio from lighting up the city’s iconic skyline with their own fireworks at midnight.
Loud explosions were mixed with the sound of protesters shouting “Out, Bolsonaro!” from their windows in Rio and Sao Paulo, the two largest cities in Brazil, in protest against a leader they accuse of a disastrous handling of the pandemic.
Bolsonaro, the politician nicknamed the “tropical Trump,” has downplayed the severity of the virus from the start and has consistently defied advice from health experts to contain it.
He ended the year on the same note, saying that the masks, which world health officials call a vital tool to prevent transmission of the virus, “protect against nothing.”
“That’s fiction,” he said in a live New Year’s Eve speech on Facebook.
“When are we going to get some people with the courage, because I’m not a specialist in this, okay? – speak and say that the protection provided by masks is a tiny percentage ”.
New Years celebrations were largely silent affairs across Brazil, although large crowds of revelers without masks could be seen on beaches and clubs in some areas.
Police broke up large parties in several cities, according to media reports.
Meanwhile, soccer superstar Neymar tried to quell a storm of controversy over reports that he hosted a week-long party for 500 revelers at his mansion on the outskirts of Rio.
The 28-year-old Paris Saint-Germain forward posted a video on Instagram of his preparations for what he called a “low-key little dinner at home” for friends and family on New Year’s Eve.
“And it’s not for 500 people, okay?” he added with a laugh.
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