Some Rochester area cultural organizations will be meeting soon to talk about potential impacts from the concerns about the novel coronavirus.
A meeting will be held on Tuesday, hosted by the Rochester Museum and Science Center, so that members of various cultural groups can talk about how concerns about the coronavirus might affect attendance at their venues along with other activities.
Hillary Olson is president and CEO of RMSC and she says that her facility has already had one corporate group cancel due to concerns about the possibility of the coronavirus spreading. There have been no confirmed cases in Rochester so far.
Olson says RMSC and other local cultural organizations want to share ideas about how they are keeping visitors and staff safe, and also how the concerns about coronavirus might impact their organizations, including whether it affects visitors to their facilities.
“Cultural organizations are essentially elective, so you don’t have to go. We are leisure time activities and we are where people gather so that is something that we need to be planning for across the region,” Olson says.
Olson says the museum is also increasing its cleaning regimen, something she assumes many other organizations are doing as well.
“We have reviewed the cleaning protocols and processes with all of our staff just to make sure everyone knows how often the bathrooms and the hands-on interactives get sanitized, but then we’ve also stepped up our game and we’re doing it more often; cleaning and sanitizing and just disinfecting everything more often than we were and I’m sure everybody else is doing that as well,” Olson says.
Olson says that next week’s session is not specifically about virus and science education, they’re leaving that to the CDC and the Health Department. She says the Tuesday meeting is more to share ideas about business interruption, outreach efforts and keeping visitors, staff and volunteers safe and healthy.
