53 journalists in Mumbai test COVID-19 positive, quarantined in hotel for 14 days

About 53 Mumbai journalists and cameramen have tested positive for COVID-19.  Most of them are field reporters who have been reporting from sensitive areas like Kasturba hospitals, Dharavi and other containment areas of the city.

The COVID-19 tests of TV journalists were conducted after TV journalists association president Vinod Jagdale took the initiative and wrote to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray requesting to conduct test of all the journalists who have been risking their lives to report on the disease. Speaking to National Herald, Vinod Jagdale said, “we wrote a letter to Uddhav Thackeray stating that there is fear that our members including journalists, cameramen and photographers may get infected so we request you to get them tested.''

Jagdale added, “About 167 of them were tested and 53 have tested positive and are now being quarantined. The state cabinet minister Aaditya Thackeray is making sure that they are kept in hotels which will have doctors attending to them. I am thankful to them. The lives of our members and journalists who are risking their lives is very important to us.''

There have been TV journalists who have been reporting from the heart of Dharavi and the makeshift OPD of a hospital under an over bridge in Central Mumbai. They have been travelling to containment areas risking their lives. A woman journalist who did not wish to be named has been staying away from her parents and reporting but unfortunately has got infected.

Another senior journalist who has tested positive and didn’t want to be named said, “I have no travel history but have reported from all risky zones of the city. I am totally asymptomatic but have tested positive. I have aged parents who usually don’t keep well. I could have quarantined myself in my house but I don’t want to risk others’ lives. I am going to the hospital and will be there for 14 days. My office is co-operating and has asked me to take it easy.''