France| Eiffel Tower visitor numbers climb to pre-Covid levels

One big factor was the return of American tourists, who accounted for 10 percent of overall visits, as well as tourists from nearby European countries.

AFP

November 04, 2021 / 20:55 IST

The Eiffel Tower is clocking up visitor numbers not seen since Covid-19 kept most tourists away and ripped a deep hole in its finances, the attraction's operator said Thursday.

A major paint job on the "Iron Lady" has resumed after an interruption during the pandemic due to high lead levels, it said, with the aim of having the landmark look its best in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The Eiffel Tower had "a good month of October", operator Sete told AFP, thanks to tourists returning to Paris, a top destination.

It received an average of more than 20,000 visitors per day in October, up from 13,000 during the summer when curbs kept down numbers allowed into the tower's lifts.

October weekend numbers were better than in 2019, Sete said.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

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There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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