Miami Local 10 news anchors Louis Aguirre and Nicole Perez have coronavirus, station says
Eight WPLG-Local 10 newsroom staffers have tested positive for COVID-19, the station said Tuesday evening on its 5 p.m. broadcast, including two of its anchors, Louis Aguirre and Nicole Perez.
“I’m feeling great. 100 percent. No symptoms at all,” Aguirre said in an interview with Local 10 anchor Calvin Hughes and co-anchor Alex Finnie Tuesday during the news broadcast.
Aguirre plans to document his illness journey for viewers, he added.
Evening anchor Nicole Perez told her Twitter followers Monday night that she had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The station said five people tested positive on Monday, including Perez, and three more tested positive on Tuesday, including Aguirre.
Perez’s husband, reporter Roy Ramos, was one of the eight.
“The #pandemic continues and my wife @NicolePerezWPLG and I are proof of it,” Ramos tweeted soon after his wife Monday night. “We have both tested positive for #COVID19. We have experienced systems like body aches, chills, loss of taste, headache & we are very tired.”
If you are watching our 11pm newscast tonight .. you would know this already, my husband @RRamosWPLG and I have tested positive for #COVID19 . We have experienced systems like body aches, chills, loss of taste, headache & we are very tired. Keep us in your prayers. @WPLGLocal10
— Nicole Perez (@NicolePerezWPLG) July 7, 2020
The couple appeared on the 11 p..m newscast Monday telling Perez’s co-anchor Hughes that they did not know how they contracted the highly contagious virus.
Perez said that she and Ramos had been feeling badly and went to a Walgreens rapid testing site around 4 p.m. that day and received their results via phone call in about two hours.
The #pandemic continues and my wife @NicolePerezWPLG and I are proof of it. We have both tested positive for #COVID19 We have experienced systems like body aches, chills, loss of taste, headache & we are very tired. #Besafe #SouthFlorida #wearyourmask #WashYourHands @WPLGLocal10 pic.twitter.com/33vQJuvXGu
— Roy Ramos (@RRamosWPLG) July 7, 2020
Perez said it was emotional hearing the news.
“When I got the results I was really sad,” she said. “I cried. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I really was upset. I don’t know how it happened.”
The two will quarantine at home; it is unclear when they will return to work.
“Hopefully, we’ll both be back sooner than later,” Ramos said.
The three other employees that came down with COVID-19 on Monday are “behind the scenes,” Perez added in her tweet, but did not want to disclose their names for privacy reasons.
Local 10 assured viewers it was disinfecting the entire newsroom located In Pembroke Park.
As for Hughes, he was on vacation and had no contact with Perez in more than 10 days, the station said.
Perez took over for longtime anchor Laurie Jennings, who retired last year.
UPDATE: The story was updated at 5:36 p.m. on 7/7/2020 to reflect that Local 10 anchor Louis Aguirre was also COVID-19 positive. The total number of newsroom employees that have tested positive for COVID-19 is eight, the station reported on its 5 p.m. news broadcast.
