SAO PAULO (AP) – The night before New Year’s Eve in Rio de Janeiro, thousands of revelers dressed in their bathing suits gathered on the iconic beach of Ipanema for a drink by the sea. It was one of several open-air parties that have taken place along Brazil’s extensive coastline since the summer heat set in and the death toll from COVID-19 rose.
“It was so packed you couldn’t set foot on the beach,” said a maintenance worker in a luxury apartment building across the street. And it wasn’t just at night; the beach was also packed during the day. And nobody wears a mask! he added, insisting not to be quoted by name, for fear that the building owner would punish him for speaking to a reporter.
The explosion of celebrations came just before a pandemic milestone: Brazil passed 200,000 deaths Thursday, up from 1,524 in the past 24 hours to a total of 200,498 for the pandemic, according to data released by Brazil’s Ministry of Health. According to the Johns Hopkins University database, it has the world’s second highest death toll, after the United States.
Dozens of protesters gathered outside Brazil’s presidential palace on Friday with a banner blaming President Jair Bolsonaro for the grim monument. They also carried signs urging Congress to remove him from office.
Many Brazilians have been campaigning against quarantine for months, going to bars or small gatherings with friends, but since the start of the pandemic there have been few mass eruptions. The festivities began after the southern hemisphere summer began on December 21.
While many countries imposed new restrictions in mid-December to limit the spread of the virus, the Bolsonaro government gave its blessing for holiday fun in the sun. Tourism Minister Gilson Machado told radio station Jovem Pan that gatherings of up to 300 people were perfectly acceptable. The decision to impose restrictions is the prerogative of local governments; some who did find their rules ignored.
A prominent YouTuber organized a party at a river beach for hundreds of people in Alagoas state, in the northeast of the country. Days later, local media reported that 47 people, including unmasked guests and staffers, had contracted COVID-19. At least two were admitted to intensive care.
A five-day New Year’s celebration drew 150 people near football star Neymar’s estate outside of Rio, though he denied any association with the VIP event.
Outside of Sao Paulo, Bolsonaro kicked off 2021 by jumping off a boat and swimming towards a crowd of unmasked, cheering supporters.
And officers in the city of Bertioga on the coast of Sao Paulo used tear gas to spread a party in the early hours of New Year’s Day.
“The situation started to get bad just before the parties. But it’s going to get worse this week or next, ”Domingos Alves, an adjunct professor of social medicine at the University of Sao Paulo, told The Associated Press this week.
Alves, who leads a team of researchers tracking COVID-19 data, warned that several states’ daily confirmed cases have already surpassed the number during Brazil’s July peak.
Intensive care units in many cities are slammed again with COVID-19 patients. The mayor of Manaus, the state capital of Amazonas – which a local study speculated may have achieved herd immunity after the brutal first wave – declared a 180-day state of emergency on Tuesday and suspended all permits for events. Government authorities have banned all non-essential activities in most of the city for 15 days
The city of 2.2 million has registered 3,550 deaths since the pandemic began, and the number of COVID-19 burials has skyrocketed. Outside at least one graveyard, cars lined up with people waiting to bury their loved ones.
Vanda Ortega, a volunteer nurse in Manaus’s Indigenous Peoples community, told the AP that the city had taken a hands-off approach to the virus, first in November’s local elections with large rallies and long lines of voters.
“Then we had the holidays, with lots of secret parties,” said Ortega, who belongs to the Witoto ethnicity. “We live in an area where rich people have huts. They have parties every week. “
Many mayors on the coast of Sao Paulo ignored vacation restrictions imposed by their governor. In at least 12 cities, mayors kept shops, hotels and beaches open to tourists.
Images of traffic jams and packed beaches, with crowds largely exposed, were so shocking that European Union Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni expressed disbelief on Twitter, saying, “I saw embarrassing images from Brazil.”
Bolsonaro, who, despite falling ill with the virus himself, has consistently argued that the country is at greater risk from the economic damage from lockdowns than from the pandemic. He indicated in his New Year’s Dive that he will continue to ignore the protective measures in place in most countries.
“I popped in with a mask so I wouldn’t catch COVID from the little fish,” he joked outside the presidential palace a few days later.
After Brazil crossed the 200,000 dead mark, Bolsonaro said in a live broadcast on his social media outlets Thursday that he regrets those two who have been lost, “but life goes on.”
“There’s no point in keeping that old story of staying at home and the economy we’ll see later,” said the Brazilian president. “That is not going to work, it will be chaos in Brazil. It can have even more dramatic consequences than that of the virus. “
Even some Brazilians who consider themselves careful abandon their guards. Football fan Ricardo Santos, 46, says he covers his face every time he goes outside, carries hand sanitizer in his bag and takes social distance. But on Wednesday, he and a dozen other Palmeiras fans headed to a bar in downtown Sao Paulo to watch their team play.
“I spent New Year’s Eve with just two friends who live in the same building. I take precautions. But sometimes you also have to take a small risk to maintain your mental health, ”said Santos.
Back on Ipanema beach in Rio, Joao Batista Baria, 57, said he blamed authorities for failing to protect the poorest residents.
“Everyone is talking about these beach parties, but there are also crowds on the bus, on the metro,” Baria said, cleaning the folding chairs that tourists and residents rent to enjoy the summer sun. “People come to the beach because they choose it. I have to take the bus to go to work. ”