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Let the good times roll with these Fat Tuesday facts.
USA TODAY
The City of New Orleans announced that Mardi Gras parades will not be allowed in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The guidelines are very clear that you can’t have a gathering that large,” said Beau Tidwell, communications director for the City of New Orleans, at a press conference on Tuesday.
Under current guidelines, outdoor gatherings in the city are limited to 150 people.
At the start of the pandemic in March, New Orleans COVID-19 numbers spiked and the city became one of the early hot spots in the United States.
Many experts blamed the outbreak on the city’s Carnival celebration for drawing more than 1 million visitors to New Orleans, which contributed to the spread of the virus. The Carnival season ended last year on Feb. 25. The city’s first presumptive case of COVID-19 was March 9.
Although New Orleans faced criticism after the fact for holding Mardi Gras parades, Mayor LaToya Cantrell defended the decision. In late February, only a handful of COVID-19 infections had been confirmed in the United States. Large events continued throughout the country, and President Donald Trump assured the nation in a tweet at that time…
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