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BL Premium reports that AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) said on Monday that testing of employees at its Mponeng mine had been finalised and showed that a third of the tested workers were infected with Covid-19.
With SA's mines returning to full staffing levels from 1 June, the return to normal operations will bring a higher risk of infected employees. A number of companies have already reported closures of mines because of staff testing positive for the virus. AGA advised that it had completed the testing of 651 persons at its Mponeng mine near Carletonville in Gauteng and 196 had tested positive. “In the vast majority of these cases, the individuals were asymptomatic, with the balance showing very mild symptoms,” AGA said, adding that those employees were now in isolation. The mine had 2,400 people back at work under the 16 April change in regulations that allowed underground mines to return to 50% of staffing levels. According to the Minerals Council SA (previously called the Chamber of Mines) about 49% of the sector's 450,000 employees are back at work. The return to normal operations could take two or three weeks in a carefully managed process to bring the balance of mineworkers back, but there are no guarantee that full operations will resume. Underground mines are unavoidably confined spaces and constraints include conveyances, meeting areas, changing rooms. “Even surface operations that are currently allowed to operate with 100% capacity are not doing so,” council spokesperson Charmane Russell indicated.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Allan Seccombe at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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