by Thinus Ferreira
The South African public broadcaster has shut its Durban office in KwaZulu-Natal after the SABC recorded its 5th staffer who has tested Covid-19 positive - leaving two SABC provincial offices now locked for deep-clean following the shuttering of its Cape Town bureau last week.
The SABC's Covid-19 staffer is currently under quarantine with staffers in Durban who will all be working remotely until the SABC can deep-clean the building. The SABC is also conducting contact tracing while those who had contact with the person will have to self-isolate for 14 days.
SABC staffers working for its regional radio stations, Ukhozi FM and Lotus FM, will be doing outside broadcasts from OB vans for the time being.
"The SABC can confirm a case of coronavirus at KwaZulu-Natal provincial office. The affected employee has been working on-site since the lockdown and is now under quarantine whilst being closely monitored," says Mmoni Seapolelo, SABC spokesperson.
"As a precautionary measure and to ascertain the extent of the risk of exposure of other employees, the office will be temporarily closed. During this time the office will be decontaminated from Wednesday until Thursday."
"The office is scheduled to reopen on Monday 1 June to resume with normal operations."
Contact tracing is also being conducted.
"As part of contact tracing, employees who will be identified as having been in contact with the affected employee will be advised and will be subjected to testing as well as the compulsory 14-day quarantine period," says Mmoni Seapolelo.
A
4th SABC staffer tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus at the SABC earlier, making it the second worker inside the South African public broadcaster's Auckland Park headquarters in Johannesburg, prompting a shutdown for another deep-clean there.
The fourth Covid-19 case at the SABC and the second at its headquarters in Johannesburg, comes after the SABC was forced to shutter its Cape Town building in Sea Point last week
after the first case of a worker there - its third case overall - tested positive for Covid-19.
Although the SABC closed its Cape Town building in Sea Point, the South African public broadcaster has kept open and
continues to operate its Good Hope FM radio station studio on the left-hand side of the lobby entrance on the ground floor of the building.
The SABC in late-March 2020 shuttered its office in the Northern Cape in April
after reporter Ulrich Hendriks tested positive for Covid-19. He has
since recovered.
The SABC in late-March 2020 then
had a second Covid-19 case - its first at its Auckland Park headquarters - at the SABC News research division, with the person who was hospitalised.
Meanwhile eMedia Investments reopened its e.tv Cape Town building in the Zonnebloem suburb without any announcement,
following its first positive Covid-19 case and death of a staffer, Lungile Tom, two weeks ago, followed by a deep-clean and the self-isolation of over 70 staffers.
e.tv and eMedia Investments' pay-TV news channel eNCA (DStv 403) are once again back to using the Cape Town building with e.tv News once again making use of the studio facilities within the building and doing its TV news bulletins from there since Monday evening.
