#Dutch museum opens contagious diseases exhibit after coronavirus delay

Dutch King Willem-Alexander, who went into isolation with his wife and three daughters as a precautionary measure after returning from Austria in March, opened the “Contagious!” exhibition on Thursday at the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave.

The exhibition highlights a range of different infectious diseases, including the bubonic plague, smallpox and AIDS. Organizers even added references to COVID-19.

As the world grapples with COVID-19’s furious spread, a museum in the Dutch city of Leiden opened an exhibition on contagious diseases after a long delay caused by the pandemic.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander, who went into isolation with his wife and three daughters as a precautionary measure after returning from Austria in March, opened the “Contagious!” exhibition on Thursday at the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave.

The exhibition highlights a range of different infectious diseases, including the bubonic plague, smallpox and AIDS. Organizers even added references to COVID-19.

Museum director Amito Haarhuis said the timing of the exhibition and the pandemic were a coincidence that underscored the importance of the subject matter.

“We had already thought that we wanted to warn for a new unknown disease,” he told The Associated Press. “Nobody knows where it will break out or when, but we do know, we’ve learned that from history, that there will always be a new disease. And we wanted to warn for that and then suddenly we don’t need it. We didn’t need to warn anymore because there was an outbreak.”

The exhibition was to have opened April 15, but the museum shelved it in March as the government introduced lockdown restrictions to rein in the spread of the coronavirus.




The Associated Press contributed to this report.