Mediapersons find themselves vulnerable to coronavirus amid lockdown

India is under a nationwide lockdown until may 3rd to curb COVID-19. While most have been ordered to stay indoors and work from home, essential service-providers continue to venture out of their homes to fulfil needs that cannot be met from within four walls.

Health workers, grocery stores, pharmacies are some of the services which are exempt from the lockdown, and so is the Indian media, and they too find themselves vulnerable to this infection.

Media professionals, be it, reporters, camera crew, photojournalists and more, are stepping out of their homes to bring you the news about this deadly pandemic. As Indians are confined to their homes amid the nationwide lockdown, they rely on independent media to inform them about the latest updates about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recently, more than 170 media professionals were tested at a medical camp in Azad Maidan in Mumbai and 53 were found positive for COVID-19. The positive cases are employed across print and electronic media and have been reporting from the ground since the pandemic gripped the nation in March this year. Reports say that most of those who tested positive are asymptomatic

A majority of these positive cases are from TV channels and had been reporting from Dharavi, one of the virus hotspots in Mumbai.

They have now been placed under quarantine In another instance, a journalist who attended senior Congress leader Kamal Nath's final news conference as Madhya Pradesh chief minister also tested positive for COVID-19. In Tamil Nadu, one reporter and a sub-editor with a TV channel tested positive while an indian-origin journalist died in a New York hospital.

Even in New Delhi, journalists covering the pandemic on the ground will be tested for the infection

While most radio jockeys and print media professionals are working from home, some have no choice but to venture out with masks and gloves. Despite precautions, these media professionals expose themselves to the infection.