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On March 1st, a museum spokesperson announced that the Louvre would temporarily close for a staff meeting regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, instead of remaining open as planned. Visitors expressed disappointment at this news, after having lined up in the rain outside the museum on Sunday morning.
It is not yet clear when the Louvre will reopen.
Tourists line up outside the Louvre on March 1st.
It is known that nearly three-quarters of the 9.6 million visitors to the Louvre in 2019 were from abroad, and the world's most famous museum still welcomes tens of thousands of visitors every day.
The Louvre welcomes tens of thousands of visitors every day.
Louvre staff were also concerned that colleagues who had recently returned from northern Italy were borrowing works by Leonardo da Vinci for their own purposes.major exhibitionOn the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of the genius artist.
Leonardo da Vinci's painting, *The Last Supper*, was displayed at an exhibition at the Louvre Museum on February 21st.
Previously, on February 29, the French government issued decrees canceling all large gatherings indoors or in places that could hold more than 5,000 people in order to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus. According to one of these decrees, the annual Paris Farm Show and the marathon, with over 40,000 registered participants, scheduled for March 1 in Paris, were canceled.
As of March 1st, France had recorded 130 cases of Covid-19 infection, an increase of 30 cases compared to the previous day, with 12 people having recovered and 2 deaths.
