The Louvre reopens with new coronavirus precautions in place for worried workers
PARIS — This should keep the “Mona Lisa” smiling: Her Paris home, the Louvre Museum, is open again after management eased workers’ fears about catching the coronavirus.
Louvre employees who had stayed off the job since Sunday for fear of infection voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday go return to work, allowing the world’s most- visited museum to open its doors again in the afternoon.
Management presented a raft of new anti-virus measures to try to coax employees back. Among them: wider distributions of disinfectant gels and more frequent staff rotations so employees can wash their hands.
Staff members will be pulled back from the room where Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic “Mona Lisa” is displayed. Instead of rubbing shoulders with visitors in the room itself, workers will just be posted at the entrances.
Most of the museum’s 9.6 million visitors last year came from abroad.
More hand sanitizers in galleries. More sinks to wash hands. For arts institutions mapping out contingency plans amid the coronavirus crisis, that’s just the start.
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