With Maharashtra crossing 4,200 Covid cases and Mumbai being the most vulnerable city with 2,300 cases alone, the increase in the number of journalists testing positive in Mumbai has become a matter of concern.
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In response to an online question seeking the government’s response on testing all the on-ground journalists in Mumbai in the wake of over 30 journalists infected by the virus, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry, Lav Agarwal, said it was a piece of very unfortunate news and the government would push for stringent precautionary measures suggested.
On testing of all journalists, he said at a press conference, “As per the sampling criteria, anyone who needs to be tested will be sampled.”
After the press meet, senior broadcast journalist Aditya Raj Kaul informed through Twitter that 53 journalists had tested positive for Covid-19 and asked the Editors Guild and News Broadcasters Association to stop sending their journalists on the ground.
53 journalists in #Mumbai have tested positive for #CoronaVirus. I request Editors Guild of India Chief @ShekharGupta & News Broadcasters Asso. Chief @RajatSharmaLive to ask media owners to not send reporters on field in Mumbai and facilitate #COVID19 tests for media in hotspots.
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) April 20, 2020
BestMediaInfo.com last Sunday reported that six staff members at Times Network had tested coronavirus positive.
