Mining Minister Baldo Prokurica took a positive account of the sector that is responsible for his portfolio, noting that it has been one of the few activities that has been maintained with a fairly low level of contagion in its workers.
“Only 2% of mining workers have become infected versus other activities that have had between 14% and up to 18% of workers who have become infected,” the secretary of state said in an interview with El Mercurio de Antofagasta.
The good side of the pandemic, according to Minister Prokurica, which stresses that mining has had positive Imacec and is therefore “an exception when compared to the rest of the economic activities is essential”.
The sayings of the head of the Mining portfolio come despite the difficulties that have been reported in some work regarding the continuity of operations and the difficult landscape in communes such as Calama and Antofagasta, both recently exited from the deconfination.
According to the Minister of Mining, “the government has committed itself to aid exceeding $30 billion, many of which are not bonuses at once, but are supports to Chilean families who have lost all coronavirus products and who need the hand of the state to get out of the reality they are in.”
Prokurica further explained that “the idea of total paralysis is not new. This is the idea that Peru, Argentina took and I can show you with numbers that Peru paralyzed mining and all economic activities for 109 days.” He added that “what happened with Argentina as well and what has happened when chile’s reality compares to that of Peru and Argentina, is that Peru is a world record for the deceased and infected, but on top of that 40% of the economy collapsed.”
In doing so, he noted that “there was a kind of automatic relationship between people saying that workers were infected in the mining work itself and that is not true. The traceability that we did, through the different medical organizations is that of mining workers only 2% was spread, there are other sectors that had up to 18% contagion.”
The minister finally stated that “if one recounts what happened to mining. Nearly 40% of productive mining workers were separated from office. The 7% to do telework and the rest was demobilized because they were elderly, they were people with base diseases or other reasons that made it not recommended that they be working in person. Over time, however, projects have gradually rejoined people with the measures that health protocols are demanding of them.”
