Codelco's trailblazing efforts to tackle the pandemic

To keep its facilities working amid the current health crisis, Chilean state copper miner Codelco has created a COVID department within its occupational health and safety management area. 

During a webinar organized by Chile’s mining chamber, Codelco’s occupational health and safety manager at its Radomiro Tomic division (pictured), Raúl Galán, said the company’s workforce is operating in silo mode to avoid interaction of personnel between different cells. 

Radomiro Tomic has 6,384 employees and 20% of them are working from home. 

Once a week, 100% of Codelco workers in operational areas are given antigen tests and traceability is done through smart watches that track and match contacts and time periods. 

In May, the miner reached 270,040 antigen tests while in the entire country there were 9,113. 

“We’ve been able to determine around 70% of asymptomatic cases using the antigen test,” Galán said. 

Likewise, every day all workers must submit a health statement, transportation vehicles work with 50% occupancy, changing and dining rooms have divisions every 1.5m and a systematic review of outbreaks has been carried out since the pandemic started.

“We’ve detected 22 outbreaks since the beginning of the pandemic, and 23 have been ruled out, mainly between January and May,” Galán told BNamericas. 

According to Galán, the main challenge for the coming months is to sustain measures to keep pandemic risks controlled.

A month ago, Codelco said that its Chuquicamata division, also in northern Chile, will permanently adopt remote working practices to improve worker safety.

The state-owned miner is the world’s largest copper producer. 

Photo credit: Codelco