Senior journalist succumbs to Covid in Odisha; 12th such death in past month

Pritiman Mohapatra, who was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Bhubaneswar after testing positive for Covid 8 days ago, is survived by his mother, wife, and a daughter, all of whom have also tested positive.

A senior journalist Odisha-based journalist succumbed to Covid-19 in Bhubaneswar on Saturday, a day the state recorded a single-day surge of over 10,402 cases, taking the total number of active cases to 67,800.

Pritiman Mohapatra. (Photo: Sourced)

Pritiman Mohapatra, who was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Bhubaneswar after testing positive for Covid 8 days ago, worked with Times of India. He was 48 and is survived by his mother, wife, and a daughter, all of whom have also tested positive.

Mohapatra, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, worked with the Bhubaneswar edition of the newspaper. In his career, he had also worked with The New Indian Express, Bhubaneswar.

With his death, the state has lost 12 journalists to Covid in the past one month. Two days ago, Debendra Samantaray, veteran journalist working with Odia daily Sambad in Sambalpur district, died. Other prominent journalists from the state to have succumbed to Covid are senior journalist Adwaita Prasad Biswal of Rourkela, Doordarshan (DD-2) anchor Bhanu Prakash Rath, Zee Odisha journalist Manas Ranjan Jaipuria, and Amjad Badshah.

Last week, two journalists from Ganjam district succumbed to the disease. While 25-year-old Govinda Behera, a resident of Kukudakhandi block, was employed with news portal News 6, Manoj Sahoo, a resident of Chikiti block, was a reporter for Odia daily Nitidin.

Last year, 15 journalists in the state had died of Covid.

Media advisor to the state government, Manas Mangaraj, said all the journalists who have died this year will get the ₹15 lakh ex-gratia. “I have asked the director of information and public relations department to give the ex-gratia amount to the next of the kin of the deceased journalists in the week’s time,” he said.

Mangaraj said the state government would take a decision on Sunday on vaccination of 9,613 working journalists in Bhubaneswar. “We have enough doses to take care of journalists in Bhubaneswar. But we do not have enough to vaccinate journalists in the rest of the state. Once we get that, we would vaccinate all the journalists who we see as frontline workers,” he said.