23 journalists test positive for Covid-19 in Telangana, state registers 237 new cases

Twenty three journalists tested positive for Covid-19 in Telangana on Sunday, taking the count of journalists’ testing positive for the infectious disease to 60 in the state, the Telangana health minister’s office said.

So far, at least one journalist has succumbed to the deadly virus in Telangana, the minister’s office said

Earlier on June 7, a 33-year-old journalist who worked as a crime reporter for a popular Telugu television news channel in Hyderabad succumbed to the Covid-19 infection, doctors at Gandhi Hospital where he had been admitted had announced.

He was the first journalist in Telangana to fall prey to the dreaded coronavirus.

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According to Gandhi Hospital Superintendent Dr Raja Rao, the journalist was already suffering from Myasthenia Gravis, in which all the muscles including respiratory muscles were weak for which he had been undergoing treatment. With this co-morbid condition, he contracted Covid-19 and developed bilateral pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). A team of doctors tried to treat him. But, he had a cardiac arrest and could not be revived.

Telangana on Sunday reported 237 new Covid-19 cases and three deaths, taking the total number of coronavirus cases in the state to 4,974.

There are 2,412 active coronavirus cases currently and at least 2,377 people have recovered from the disease and been discharged.

With the 3 deaths, the death toll in the state has now risen to 185, the state health department said.

Among the total Covid-19 positive cases reported in Telangana, 449 are migrant workers who have returned from other states after the lockdown was lifted and also includes foreign returnees and deportees, the health department said.