Travelers to France will now require a special COVID pass in order to tour the Eiffel Tower and visit museums, movie theaters and some other cultural sites and tourist attractions as officials aim to avoid a rise in delta variant infections, the Associated Press reported.
An iconic Paris landmark, the Eiffel Tower reopened to the public with coronavirus restrictions in place last week. As of Wednesday, tourists will need to secure a COVID pass in order to gain entry. To do so, visitors must prove that they are either fully vaccinated against the virus, have recently tested negative or have recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection.
In addition to a COVID pass, visitors will have to adhere to other rules, including a mandatory mask policy regardless of vaccination status and will need to be patient with capacity limits. The number of daily visitors will be limited to 13,000 a day instead of the normal 25,000.
"Tourism is coming back to Paris and we can again share the happiness, with visitors from around the world, of this monument and Paris," said Jean-Francois Martins, head of the tower's operating company, told AFP news agency. "Obviously it's an additional operational complication, but it's manageable."
The tower was closed in October as France battled a surge in COVID-19 infections, remaining closed for nine months and marking the 132-year-old landmark's longest closure since World War II.
France reopened to vaccinated international travelers, including Americans, last month. As of July 21, France has reported nearly 5.9 million COVID-19 cases, including 112,000 deaths.
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