As journalists nationwide continue succumbing to the fatal coronavirus, Gauhati Press Club (GPC) appealed Assam government to vaccinating mediapersons irrespective of their age.
A letter to the state's health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the press club's authorities mentioned that journalists across all age groups should be provided with the vaccine against Covid and consider it as the need of hour.
"Already, over the past one year, we have lost dozens of journalists due to COVID-19, the latest being senior journalists like Nilakshi Bhattacharya, Aiyushman Dutta and Rohit Sardana," the letter read.
"It goes without saying that media organisations, especially journalists, have been working relentlessly since the outbreak of the pandemic thereby ensuring the flow of credible information at the time of crisis, without even bothering about the safety of their own lives.
They are acting no less than a frontline warrior by any stretch of one's imagination and hence should be provided with the jab on a priority basis.
It is therefore high time that the government machinery understood and acknowledged the importance of the role of journalists who are playing an equally important part in moulding public opinion in the right direction at this hour of crisis.
The fight against the pandemic would be impossible to win without the contribution of the journalist fraternity and Gauhati Press Club is willing to provide all necessary support to the Government in organising camps exclusively for journalists, irrespective of their age," the letter read.
