Boston Children’s Museum will close through early January as COVID-19 precaution

The Boston Children’s Museum announced it will voluntarily close its doors to visitors through Jan. 7 because of the spike in COVID-19 cases around the region.

“While disheartening during this time when the Museum normally welcomes thousands of children to enjoy festive exhibits and programs, we are confident that this step is in the best interest of our staff and visitors,” museum president and chief executive Carole Charnow said in a statement Sunday.

(1/6) In response to the current resurgence in COVID-19 cases in MA and to ensure the continued wellbeing of its relatively small staff along with the continued safety of visitors during the holidays, Boston Children's Museum will voluntarily close to the public through 1/7. pic.twitter.com/Y4LPBnZHCu

— Boston Children's Museum (@BosChildMuseum) December 13, 2020

The closure will begin Monday. Museum officials said they did not know of any COVID-19 cases connected to the museum, but decided to close as a precaution anyway to keep employees and would-be visitors safe. Staff will be working on remote programming.

There were 4,968 newly-diagnosed cases of the coronavirus announced in Massachusetts Saturday, and 47 new deaths. State officials estimated that there are 67,754 active coronavirus cases, a number that has been steadily rising since early fall.

The Children’s Museum announcement came on the first day of a rollback in the state’s reopening, which Governor Charlie Baker had announced on Tuesday. Under the new guidelines, businesses like restaurants, gyms, retail stores, and museums must slightly reduce their capacities from 50 percent to 40 percent. Restaurants can seat, at most, six people per table, and diners must keep their masks on unless they are eating or drinking and leave within 90 minutes to speed up turnover.