China's Hubei reopens provincial museums, library as epidemic wanes

Hubei, the hard-hit province by the novel coronavirus pandemic, reopened five major public cultural venues on Sunday in the region’s ongoing effort to return to normalcy.

The venues include the provincial museum, provincial library, memorial hall of the Xinhai Revolution, provincial art museum and mass art center, all located in Wuhan City.

The reopenings come on the heels of the government’s decision to lower Hubei’s COVID-19 emergency response level from II to III, enabling public venues, conferences, exhibitions, trans-provincial tourism and classes to gradually resume operations.

All five facilities require advance reservations and implemented caps on the daily number of visitors.

The Hubei Provincial Museum reopened four exhibition halls and will receive no more than 1,000 visitors a day. The Hubei Museum of Art has capped daily visitors at 300.

The library will thoroughly disinfect its books before they are checked out, as well as waive fees for overdue books due to the pandemic.

“Finally I can return the three books I borrowed last October,” said 70-year-old Li Aizhen, who was among those waiting in line to return books.

At the Hubei Provincial Museum, many visitors fetched audio guides instead of taking guided tours. Staff held placards asking visitors to stay at least one meter apart from one another.

Fang Qin, curator of the museum, said the pandemic raises new challenges for the museum.

“In the past, we were mainly concerned about preventing fires and theft in the design and operation of museums,’ Fang said. “Now we must add public-health crises to the list.”