Carnival returned to San Francisco this weekend after the pandemic halted all celebration for two years.

People were having fun today enjoying food, music and culture. But it also comes at a time when COVID-19 cases have spiked in the Bay Area.

The festival is back for 17 blocks and people are really happy to see it and the big parade is back on Sunday.

The organizers put a lot of thought into setting this up in a fun way and providing tools and resources related to COVID.

“It’s great, it’s great. I connect to a lot of cultures,” said Maria Marquez of Lodi.

The event began with a two-day festival showcasing the arts and cultural traditions of Latin America and the Caribbean.

On Sunday, the parade returns with more than 60 contingents.

Rodrigo Duran is the event’s executive director. He said that during the pandemic it has been reduced to smaller resource fairs. But this year there is a full event.

Although they say they were on hiatus during the planning process, closely monitoring covid cases.

“We were on hiatus the whole time because we were very, very careful about how people could stay safe,” he said. “As I said, we have six different stations so people can get rapid tests for free can get tested on the spot, get vaccinated do the booster so we feel safe – we have masks too .”

Some people who attended the event on Saturday told NBC Bay Area that they had thought about it.

“We’ve done that and we’ve got a mask actually, people walking around giving out tests which is amazing and on the streets today something for everyone,” Ruby Murray said.