Museums Across Northern Italy Shutter as the Country Takes Emergency Measures to Contain the Spread of Coronavirus

Museums across northern Italy
have closed their doors as part of a spate of emergency measures to
contain the spread of the novel 2019 strain of
coronavirus.

Italy is at the center of the
biggest outbreak of the mysterious new virus outside of Asia. A
total of 219 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the
country, five of whom have died from the respiratory disease it
causes. One person has successfully recovered, the country’s health
ministry reports. Cases have erupted in the regions of Lombardy,
Veneto, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna, and Lazio. The sudden spike—up
from only five known cases on Thursday—has put the global community
on notice that the virus is spreading far beyond China’s
borders—quickly. 

Italy’s Ministry of Health
issued an emergency ordinance on Sunday detailing extraordinary
measures to contain the spread of the disease, including school
closures and the cancellation of sporting and cultural events such
as Venice’s annual Carnival, which draws tens of thousands of
visitors.

As part of the effort to thwart
the virus, all museums and cultural institutions in the affected
regions have shuttered, including Museo Correr, the Palazzo
Ducale, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the
Fondazione Prada and Santa Maria delle Grazie convent, which
houses Leonardo’s The Last Supper, in Milan.
Museums in Turin, including
the contemporary-art focused Castello di Rivoli, have also
closed. 

The Italian government has
imposed strict quarantine restrictions in several towns in Veneto
and Lombardy, affecting around 50,000 people. Museums in
different cities have received varying guidelines on when they
expect to reopen, but the government measures are in place until at
least February 29. 

Meanwhile, authorities are
scrambling to locate patient zero. “We have not yet been able to
find it,” the head of Italy’s civil protection agency, Angelo
Borrelli, said during a press conference on Sunday. “It is
therefore still difficult to make hypotheses about the
spread.”

Other European countries are now
on high alert. The French health minister Olivier Véran says that
authorities are preparing for a possible outbreak in France. Some
12 cases of the virus have been recorded in the country, with ten
patients recovered and one death. Véran says he is monitoring the
“very serious” situation closely. French museums and monuments have
already been somewhat impacted by the precipitous drop in Chinese
tourists due to quarantine measures at home, and fears are growing
that the decline in spending could have wider consequences for the
global tourism industry.

As cases of the respiratory
disease spike in South Korea, Italy, and Iran, authorities are
growing increasingly worried that the outbreak could become a
pandemic. Around 77,000 people in China, where the virus initially
broke out in December, have been infected, and nearly 2,600 have
died. The World Health Organization has reported more than 1,200
confirmed cases in 26 other countries, with eight
deaths.

Authorities are concerned about a spike in cases affecting
people with no connection to China. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
said in a statement on Saturday that “the window of opportunity is
narrowing” to contain the virus beyond China.

“Although the total number of
cases outside China remains relatively small,” he said, “we are
concerned about the number of cases with no clear epidemiological
link, such as travel history to China or contact with a confirmed
case.” 

The post Museums Across Northern Italy Shutter as the
Country Takes Emergency Measures to Contain the Spread of
Coronavirus appeared first on artnet News.