France closed the world-famous Louvre Museum on Sunday as the deadly outbreak that began in China sent fear rising across Western Europe, threatening its tourism industry
The Louvre, the world's most popular museum, got 9.6 million visitors last year, almost three-quarters of them from abroad.
New fronts in the outbreak opened rapidly over the weekend, deepening the sense of crisis that has already sent financial markets plummeting, emptied the streets in many cities and rewritten the routines of millions of people. More than 88,000 around the globe have been infected, with the virus appearing on every continent but Antarctica.
The travel restrictions against Italy and the rising alarm in France could deal a heavy blow to the countries' tourism industries. Spring, especially Easter, is a hugely popular time for schoolchildren to visit France and Italy. Panic-buying of daily necessities emerged in Japan, where professional baseball teams have played spring-training games in deserted stadiums. Tourist sites across Asia, Europe and the Mideast were deserted. Islam's holiest sites have been closed to foreign pilgrims. And governments have closed schools and banned big gatherings.
Louvre staffers were also concerned about museum workers from Italy who had come to the museum to collect works by Leonardo da Vinci that were loaned for a major exhibition. Among the frustrated visitors was Charles Lim from Singapore. He and his wife, Jeanette, chose Paris to celebrate their first wedding anniversary and bought tickets in advance for the Louvre. China, where the outbreak began two months ago, on Sunday reported a slight uptick in new cases over the past 24 hours to 573, the first time in five days that the number exceeded 500. They remain almost entirely confined to the hardest-hit province of Hubei and its capital, Wuhan.
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