Brazilians Shrug Off Zika Fears to Revel in Carnival Fun

By Andrew Jacobs

**Performers from a samba school paraded during carnival celebrations**

SALVADOR, Brazil — From a mosquito’s point of view, the sweaty, minimally clothed multitudes thronging the streets of this northeastern city on Monday night must have looked especially delectable.

Drunk on beer and preoccupied by the prodigious carnal possibilities, young men and women danced their way along Avenida Oceânica as Brazilian pop icons performing atop giant motorized stages exhorted them to jump, party and celebrate life.

Momentarily distracted from the bacchanal, Mariana Souza, 26, rolled her eyes when asked about Zika, the mosquito-borne virus that is raging across the nation and much of Latin America. “Do I look worried?” Ms. Souza, a shop clerk dressed in short-shorts and a stringy halter top, shouted above the din. “Ask me next week, after Carnival is over.”

Despite deepening fear and worry across the Americas since the World Health Organization declared that Zika is a global emergency, millions of Brazilians this week offered a collective shrug and took to the streets to celebrate Carnival. Such dispassion has alarmed public health officials, who are scrambling to curb the outbreak among a population that has long lived with mosquitoes — and which seldom takes precautions to avoid bites, especially those too poor to afford repellent, window screens or air-conditioning.

Despite a World Health Organization declaration that Zika is a global emergency, millions of Brazilians this week offered a collective shrug and took to the streets for Carnival celebrations. Credit Mario Tama/Getty Images

In conversations with scores of revelers in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Salvador, only a handful expressed concern about Zika — and few people wore the pants or long-sleeve shirts that would reduce the chance of mosquito bites.

“Carnival in Rio: A Party for Humans and a Feast for Mosquitoes” is how one newspaper headline summed up the mood.

Here in Salvador, an impoverished, sweltering city of three million that has been hit hard by Zika, hotels are fully booked, news outlets are fixated on Carnival, and cologne-suffused sweat, not mosquito repellent, is the dominant scent wafting through the crowds that gather day and night. According to some estimates, attendance is up 25 percent over last year.