Nirupama Viswanathan By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Two journalists in the city, both male and 24 years of age, tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday.

The Triplicane resident is a civic issue beat reporter for a local daily and has been assigned to cover COVID 19 for the last few weeks. The other patient is a television journalist who resides in police quarters in Royapuram zone.

Around 50 members who were staying in the same mansion as the news daily reporter in Triplicane are to be quarantined. According to corporation officials, he had seemingly not come into contact with any known cases of COVID-19 patients before.

He had frequented Ripon Buildings among other places during the course of his reporting. However, after the lockdown was announced he had stopped going to Ripon building and had been only going to his office in Mylapore, said corporation officials. When he thought he had symptoms, he voluntarily went to the Rajiv Gandhi Government Hospital to get tested, the officials further added.

“We are now carrying out disinfection work. After this we will send the 50 people for testing in the sample collection centre in Nungambakkam,” a Corporation official told The New Indian Express.

“After that, we are looking at spaces where we can quarantine them including at our Communicable Diseases hospital,” the official said.

The second journalist from Royapuram worked as a sub-editor in a TV channel in the city.

“The patient’s father is a cop and he stays with his family at the police quarters. We are in the process of tracing contacts and quarantine will be done accordingly,” said a corporation official.

The contacts traced so far have been sent for testing at the sample collection centre in Bharathi Women’s college. His father has since tested negative, said corporation officials.

So far three of his family members, listed as his primary contacts, have been placed under quarantine.

(The name of the streets have been withheld to protect their identity)