Univision staff was forced to vacate its Doral studio and do a broadcast from outdoors because newsroom colleagues tested positive for the new coronavirus.
“Today at Univision we were notified that a second colleague in Miami received a positive COVID-19 result. As a preventive measure, we have closed the main office building to do intensive and thorough cleaning of the building and the person’s work areas, beyond regular scheduled deep cleaning operations. To implement additional security, there will be additional security controls at the entry points,” Univision told El Sentinel, the Sun Sentinel’s Spanish-language newspaper.
“Univision has quickly moved all of its daily transmissions to other locations, outside of the main offices, to ensure that our vital services can proceed without interruption.”
Host María Antonieta Collins and journalist Jorge Ramos conducted the Univision Newscast on Wednesday from the parking lot outside the television studio in Doral.
“We are in an unusual transmission because a person we worked with in the Univision newsroom was positive for coronavirus,” Ramos said on the program in a video shared on the networks by the Infobae news website. “Therefore, in a measure of extreme caution, the entire news team has come out and we are broadcasting from this location to avoid any possibility of contagion with other people.”
Ramos posted on his Twitter account: “Due to a case at Newsport in Miami, where Univision’s news programs come from, today we are broadcasting the Newscast and all evening programming from one of our parking lots. It is an honor to work with such a team.”
As of Wednesday evening, Miami-Dade County led the state with the largest number of COVID-19 cases (491). The state of Florida has more than 1,800 cases, with 23 deaths reported. None of the deaths were in Miami-Dade.
Yvonne H. Valdez can be reached at yvaldez@sunsentinel.com, @yvonnehvaldezz Twitter, FB and Instagram.
