‘ACTORS SHOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN PREFERENCE FOR VACCINATION’

Nikita Dutta rues that actors didn’t get preference for vaccination after frontline workers, but is also glad that the drive has now started for all above 18

Actor Nikita Dutta is on the road to recovery after testing positive for Covid-19, but that doesn’t take away the fear of getting infected again while working. Hence, she opines that actors should have been given preference for vaccination after frontline workers.

Dutta contracted the virus last month while shooting for her dance film, Rocket Gang, in Mumbai alongside Aditya Seal. “After my co-star tested positive, we stalled the shoot, and I got myself tested. My report came negative twice, and then positive,” she reveals.

The actor confesses that she’s doing much better now, unlike before. “Unfortunately, before I tested positive, I was in a more grave situation. I had a fever and wasn’t able to stand up. By the time I tested positive, I had already started to get better,” Dutta shares.

However, as the fear of the virus still lingers around, Dutta admits it “scary” to remove a mask to shoot a scene, but adds that there’s “no alternative to that. Unless they start writing scenes where actors are wearing masks,” she quips.

And that’s where vaccination would come in, and shield them, feels Dutta. “Unfortunately, the entertainment industry isn’t given that much preference. As actors who are facing the camera every day, we should have been given a preference after the essential and frontline workers. However, the good part is that the vaccine will now be available to everybody,” says the actor, who was last seen in The Big Bull (2021).