COVID-19 Claims Lives Of At Least 13 Journalists In Honduras

News Americas, TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Mon. June 21, 2021: At least 13 journalists have so far died from COVID-19 in Honduras.

The latest is Carlos Riedel, who was buried in Tegucigalpa, on Sunday, June 20, 2021. Riedel died due to complications related to COVID-19 at the Honduran Social Security Institute (IHSS) in the capital.

The outstanding 82-year-old journalism professional directed the program ‘Carlos Riedel Presenta,’ which is broadcast Monday through Friday from 4 to 5 in the afternoon on the HRN radio of the Emisoras Unidas (EU) corporation.

His colleagues at the company he worked for lamented Riedel’s death. Riedel was known for being one of the founding members of the news program “Today Himself” of the Televicentro corporation.

The journalist had been admitted to a hospital on May 21st after testing positive for the deadly virus.

The president of the Honduran College of Journalists (CPH), Osman Reyes, said the country loses one of its best communicators. “We join in the great sorrow of his family, friends and acquaintances. It leaves us a great void, but it fills us with joy to have met this great man,” he said.

Other journalists who have died from COVID-19 included David Romero, journalist and director of Radio Globo, who was arrested on March 25, 2019, and contracted COVID-19 in prison and died on July 18, 2020 and Nelson Flores, renowned journalist from Television Educativa Nacional (TEN) from Honduras who died Feb. 7, 2021. He was 52.

The news comes as the Mexican government announced on Friday it is donating to Honduras 154,100 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The donation is the first from the Mexican government to the small Central American nation, which has confirmed 251,149 cases of coronavirus and 6,719 deaths.

About 400,000 Hondurans have received at least one vaccine shot, out of a population of 9.5 million.