Museum-killers: bugs of two kinds

It’s getting rough out there for museums and their staff. The coronavirus pandemic poses an existential threat to museums as well as for-profit businesses nationwide. And it’s all due to bugs.

The coronavirus is the immediate bug threat: American museums are struggling to survive without paying visitors, who are stuck in quarantine. A survey of 760 museum directors last month showed they’ve laid off or furloughed 44% of their staff. Without major financial aid, one-third of the museum heads worry they may be forced to shut down permanently in 16 months — if their operating budgets even last that long.

And then there’s the other kind of bug.

Gray silverfish are less of a problem at UK museums during normal times. Source: Wikimedia Commons

It’s more difficult for museums in Britain to keep gray silverfish and other pests from damaging the collections when all the staff are stuck at home. No museum visitors are scaring away the bugs from the public areas, either, and the insects are more active in warmer weather as well. So the bugs pretty much have the place to themselves.

Don’t you want to see art in real life again, instead of online? Remember to mask up, y’all. The sooner we flatten the infection curve, the sooner we get to enjoy our museums.