The Metropolitan Museum of Art Has Indefinitely Closed All Three Locations After a Staffer May Have Caught Coronavirus

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is indefinitely closing all three
of its locations starting Friday after two of its staffers started
exhibiting symptoms associated with the coronavirus.

In an email sent to museum employees this week by Met
president Dan Weiss, he acknowledged that one employee in the
department of drawings and prints was exhibiting “flu-like
symptoms” after returning from overseas travel.

Weiss said the testing was being done with the guidance and
support of New York health officials and the Centers for
Disease Control.

The museum did not respond to Artnet News’s requests for
comment.

“As is now standard practice, out of an abundance of caution we
have asked all staff who have had contact with that individual to
work at home until the test results have been received,” Weiss said
in the email, which was sent Tuesday.

The department of drawings and prints has also been closed “and
secured, and will be cleaned thoroughly before staff are permitted
to return,” Weiss wrote. The employee expects to get the results
from their test sometime this week.

Another employee began exhibiting similar symptoms, according to
the New York
Times.

The museum has now implemented a ban on all international travel
and is strongly discouraging all “discretionary domestic travel via
common carriers (e.g., planes and trains).” Work-from-home
procedures are being put in place for those who are able to do
their jobs remotely.

This is a particularly significant year for the Met: the museum
is celebrating its 150th
anniversary and recently announced plans to kick off
celebrations on April 13 with a ceremonial cake-cutting with
city and state officials, followed by a party this spring welcoming
the approximately 1,000 living artists in its collection. The
museum has not yet determined whether these events will proceed as
scheduled.

The coronavirus, which has roiled markets around the globe, now
also seems to be threatening cultural institutions’
finances—including the Met’s. In the email sent to staff on
Wednesday, Weiss and Hollein noted that the museum’s finance
officers were “assessing the economic repercussions of coronavirus”
and how the institution could “compensate” for any losses.
International tourists accounted for 28
percent of its visitors in the 2019 fiscal year; unlike locals,
they must pay a $25 admission fee.

“While the negative impact on the museum’s revenues is likely to
be significant,” Weiss and Hollein wrote, “leadership has a number
of short-term funding sources that it can use to reduce the
financial strain in fiscal year 2020.”

Meanwhile, the Frick Collection and the Jewish Museum have also
closed.

The post The Metropolitan Museum of Art Has Indefinitely Closed All
Three Locations After a Staffer May Have Caught Coronavirus
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