CNN Employee In New York Tests Positive For Coronavirus

A staff member at CNN has tested positive for the coronavirus, the latest employee of a news organization to contract the disease.

All three major broadcast networks — CBS News, ABC News and NBC News — have reported that one or more employees who have contracted the virus. CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that CNN staffers in New York received a memo that the employee is in “very good health as of today.”

The coronavirus has posed a challenge for all the networks, on a number of levels, as they operate with slimmed-down staffs because of social distancing at their workplaces. At the same time, they have had to grapple with colleagues who have contracted the virus along with the need to quarantine those who may have had contact with them.

On Monday, Al Roker and Craig Melvin, co-hosts of the third hour of Today, stayed home for a self-imposed isolation period after one of the show’s producers tested positive for the virus. CBS News foreign correspondent Seth Doane said on CBS This Morning that he had contracted the virus, as he reported on his experience from his home in Rome.

“This is a serious virus with possibly deadly consequences.. and even if you only have mild symptoms (like me) it’s essential we take quarantine seriously and stop the spread of the virus,” Doane wrote on Twitter.

CBS News, meanwhile, closed its broadcast center studios late last week for a deep cleaning, and have reopened them with a set of restrictions that limit occupancy to only those staffers with an essential need to be there for network productions.