by Thinus Ferreira
A fourth staffer has tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus at the SABC, making it the second worker inside the South African public broadcaster's Auckland Park headquarters in Johannesburg, prompting a shutdown for another deep-clean.
The SABC didn't respond to a media enquiry made on Monday morning seeking comment about the next Covid-19 case at the public broadcaster and what the SABC is doing about it, after sources told TVwithThinus that another staffer at the SABC is now Covid-19 positive.
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.
