Covid Scare: Journalists Seek Safety From Future Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people from every section of society and it has been a difficult phase for everyone. Doctors and researchers across the world are relentless to find a medicine, a cure for the disease and have been carrying out trials after trials on different new medicines and vaccines. Among the dead also include journalists. India was among the top three countries in the world when it came to deaths of journalists due to COVID-19 in April 2021, a Geneva-based media rights body found out. As the Centre declared journalists as frontline workers, Northeast Today tries to find out as to what do the journalists from the region want from their respective governments while dealing with the pandemic.

First Words

A Geneva-based media rights body found that as of April 26, as many as 107 journalists had died in India due to COVID-19, which is only behind Brazil (with 181 casualties) and Peru (with 140). The report further added that 45 journalists died in India only in the last two weeks of April. Meanwhile, the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) reported that in April, as many as three journalists died in India every day out of COVID-19 complications.

The first journalist to succumb to COVID-19 in the northeast was 39-years old Tripura-based journalist Tanmay Chakraborty on April 25. He was followed by the death of another young journalist from Assam Aiyushman Dutta (35) on April 26. Apart from them, a few more journalists from Assam are at a critical stage and are battling a tough battle against the disease.

It may be mentioned here that 1,184 journalists have died after testing positive for COVID-19 in 76 countries, since March 2020, the PEC has reported. In its report, PEC mentions the deaths of Amjad Badshah (Odisha), Tanmoy Chakraborty (Tripura), Vivek Bendre, Sachin Shinde, Jairam Sawant and Sukhnandan Gavai (in Maharashtra), Ram Prakash Gupta (Bihar), Rohitash Gupta (Uttar Pradesh) and Ramjan Ali (Andhra Pradesh).