BL Premium reports that the Minerals Council SA (previously called the Chamber of Mines) said on Friday that testing each and every mine worker for Covid-19 was not feasible for SA’s mining industry.
The observation came after the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) expressed concern over the rapid spread of Covid-19 in the industry, especially in Limpopo. The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu), meanwhile, has called on the government to enforce universal testing of mineworkers. The mining industry employs about 450,000 people and of those 3,035 have been tested. The MCSA’s head of health, Thuthula Balfour, said: “In SA, as in most of the rest of the world, there are limited testing resources … It would be unfair to everyone else if a big share of the total testing capacity was allocated to one industry.” Balfour also said a number of mining companies were looking to boost testing capacity both within their companies and the regions in which they operate, but “further testing is not the panacea some consider it to be, simply because you get tested at [a particular] point in time. You might be tested today and tomorrow you are exposed to the infection. Clearly it is not possible to test each person every day”. The industry sees its greatest interventions in the fight against Covid-19 to be through hygiene and social-distancing measures.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lisa Steyn at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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