News channel’s office sealed after fresh cases, Noida adds 14 more to Covid tally
NOIDA: The Gautam Budh Nagar district administration on Monday sealed five-storeyed building of Zee Media in Film City, Sector 16A for its thorough sanitization and disinfection after another employee tested positive from a different floor of the building.
All the previous cases of the media company were from fourth floor of the building, but an employee tested positive from second floor on May 24, health officials said.
“Based on the finding of new positive case in different floor of the building, the entire building has been closed for sanitization and containment of the disease to other places as per the Epidemic Disease (COVID-19) Regulation Act, 2020. The entry of employees has been stopped till the building is completely disinfected,” Dr Sunil Dohre, district surveillance officer, said in a release on Monday.
The release further stated that after due sanitization and following the safety protocols, the building will get fitness certificate from health officials to resume its operation.
On Monday, 10 employees of the news channel tested positive. “All patients were in institutional quarantine. While nine of them hailed from GB Nagar, one was cross-notified to Delhi. They all have been shifted to the hospital for treatment. The five-storey office building has been closed for sanitization and disinfection,” said Dohre.
So far, a total of 49 Zee Media employees have been found positive for the infection. Of the 49 patients, 33 are from GBN, the health officials said.
After the first case was reported from Zee on May 15, the health department had taken 51 samples of employees, of which 28 were found Covid-19 positive. Till now, health officials have screened 400 employees of the organization to trace close contacts of the positive patients. Besides, samples of 50 more employees who are close contacts of the positive patients are collected and they have been put under institutional quarantine, the officials said.
When contacted, Sudhir Chaudhary, editor-in-chief of Zee News, said that right from day 1, when the first lot of his employees were sent for sampling, Zee Media is following all the Covid-19 safety norms. “It is the biggest media house that has volunteered sampling of all its employees. For us, the safety of our employees is on top priority. We are getting the tests of those employees at our own cost, where the district administration is not able to do it on time,” he said.
Hoping that his team will emerge as Corona warriors soon, he said most of the employees are either quarantined or have been assigned to work from home. “I am sure that our team of dedicated journalists will soon come into action again,” Chaudhary said.
Meanwhile, the overall tally of Covid-19 cases in the district has gone to 359 with addition of 14 new cases on Monday. However, five patients, undergoing treatment for the coronavirus disease, were discharged after being cured, the health officials said.
The district surveillance officer said that of these 14 new Covid-19 cases, 13 were tested positive from different government labs in the district while one was tested positive in a private lab.
“Till Monday evening, the number of positive cases reported in the district was 359. Of them, 235 people have been discharged from different hospitals. While five patients have so far lost their lives and 16 have been cross notified from other districts and states, we have only 119 active cases,” Dohre said.
About other five patients, Dohre said that they were from various areas of the district and were found suffering from influenza like illness. “The list includes a 55-year-old male of Sector 105, a 63-year-old male of Sector 12, an 11-year-old boy of Sector 5, a 24-year-old male from Salarpur village and a 68-yearold female of Sector 36,” he said.
The district surveillance officer also said that so far 10,222 samples have been taken for testing in the district. “Since Sunday, 199 samples have been sent to different government laboratories and another 144 samples to the private laboratories. GB Nagar’s sampling ratio of 4,867 samples per million is also better than national sampling ratio of 2,333. This shows strong surveillance system in the district,” he said.