While Paris is touting that the perpetually smiling Mona Lisa is “back in business” this week, on the other side of the world, Miami is again shutting down venues weeks after they reopened because a spike in coronavirus cases is creating a shortage of intensive care unit beds at its hospitals.
Effective Wednesday Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s emergency order mandated that restaurants be limited to outdoor dining, takeout and delivery service, and gyms, banquet halls and short-term vacation rentals like those available on Airbnb be closed. Bars are already closed state-wide and restaurants were limited to 50 percent capacity indoors.
Like much of the state, Miami-Dade’s restaurants had reopened with capacity and social-distancing restrictions in mid-May, while gyms reopened about a month ago. During that time, the county’s daily rate for confirmed cases skyrocketed from about 300 a day to more than 2,000 with more than 1,600 hospitalized coronavirus patients, double what it had two weeks ago. Miami-Dade has been the state’s hardest-hit area along with its South Florida neighbours, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Meanwhile, in the French capital, it’s a different story as Paris’ Louvre Museum, which houses the Mona Lisa, the world’s most famous portrait, reopened Monday after a four-month coronavirus lockdown.
The reopening of the world’s most-visited museum is a bright spot in what has been an otherwise quiet start to the summer tourist season in France, with far fewer visitors than was normal before the pandemic closed borders.
Inside the museum, face masks were a must and visitor numbers were limited, with reservations required.
Among the trickle of returning tourists was Zino Vandenbeaghen, who travelled from Belgium to enjoy the unusual space at both the Louvre and the Palace of Versailles. “It’s super,” he said. “The ideal moment to visit.”
About 70% of the giant museum — 45,000 sq. m. of space, or the equivalent of 230 tennis courts — housing 30,000 of the Louvre’s vast trove of works is again accessible to visitors starved of art in lockdown.
“It’s very emotional for all the teams that have prepared this reopening,” said Jean-Luc Martinez, the museum director.