Even in the middle of summer and in the middle of a global pandemic, days begin early at the New Gold Inc. gold and silver mine in Rainy River, Ontario.
As a precautionary measure on those days, there are fewer personnel on a given shift, however, shortly after sunrise, an avalanche of cars and buses begins to reach the mine 65 kilometers northwest of Fort Frances.
The nurses are there to ask questions about COVID-19 symptoms and control the temperatures of those who haven’t been there for a few days. The signs remind crews to wear the PPE. In early August, the mine had not noticed any instances of COVID-19.
New Gold be like that.
The company is the first in Canada to verify a new check to diagnose COVID-19 instances in just one hour, outdoors in a lab.
Precision Biomonitoring verification kits, founded in Guelph, Ontario, have been approved through Health Canada for use at the point of need, meaning they are mobile. The purpose is to create a COVID-free, and New Gold CEO Renaud Adams is successful.
It all comes down to one thing: “protect your other people as productive as you can,” Adams said. “We’re at 0 [case] and we have to stay there, and that’s the point.”
As an essential service, New Gold did not close its doors to the pandemic at all, but reduced its operations. Step by step, it was rescaled.
“Every time you load a step and don’t charge cargo protection, it’s a challenge,” Adams said.
It has a giant open pit mine, however, there are jobs in which maintaining a physical distance remains difficult.
Up to 150 employees can live in on-site shift rotations, percentage of living spaces in trailers and eat in combination at a coffee shop. Advanced remote efforts and cleaning protocols have been implemented, but “it would take one user to infect several others,” Adams said.
New Gold won precision biomonitoring kits at Rainy River last month. The kits are necessarily miniature laboratories, with tubes containing reagents or biomedical ingredients and a analyzer device weighing about 1.4 kilograms, small enough to hold with one hand.
The mine’s fitness staff have already started working with some employees, after Precision Biomonitoring trained them by videoconference on how to use the verification kits.
Although patient samples are taken in the same way as in other COVID-19 controls, through a swab, samples are tested in tubes with freeze-dried reagents that do not require refrigeration. This is an essential difference between precision biomonitoring and other verification kits, which can degrade over time if not stored at express temperatures. It’s this product feature that makes it mobile.
Up to nine patient samples can be tested at once on analysis machines, which users run through a smartphone app. Tests point to multiple portions of the virus to increase the accuracy of the effects and false negatives. The effects are displayed on your phone screen in just one hour.
OBSERVING how a cell phone may aim to keep COVID out of the workplace:
Generation is a variant of a portable precision biomonitoring evolved into water bodies for certain organisms.
Co-founder and CEO Mario Thomas said the progression of this COVID-19 verification device is an ethical obligation.
“As a scientist, frankly, I was terrified [by] the pandemic.”
Thomas and his colleagues learned that they had the ability to design anything that could be used in outdoor hospitals, “in remote spaces where getting tested is not as practical.” He said the team was running 24 hours a day to get there.
Most of the tests are being conducted in the United States, however, the company hopes to obtain approval soon to be manufactured in a laboratory in Kanata, Ontario, which will allow them to increase production as needed.
As discussions continue about a “second wave” of coronavirus infections, “it’s time to publish it,” Thomas said.
Intrigued by the concept of creating what Thomas calls a “virus-free zone,” many organizations sought to be more informed about the product, he said. Industries, from production to fishing to film production, have expressed interest as they review tactics to return to paintings safely.
Each verification kit costs approximately $30,000 and includes 1,000 checks as well as virtual education sessions with precision biomonitoring. The company says it has moderate value for technology.
However, not everyone can buy check kits. Under federal approval requirements, customers must also have trained medical workers, add a lab technician and nurse, and be monitored by a physician for use.
Adams said it took a lot of time and effort for many others to put the new verification features into effect at the Rainy River mine.
But as the constraints are running and the company continues to expand its operations to pre-COVID levels, he said it is an “important step.”
It’s still early, however, New Gold will check everyone when the 14-day shift rotations begin on the site. If the experiment goes well, the company can simply increase the generation of its other two mines in British Columbia.
“It’s a new technology,” Adams said. “We’re ready, you know, to have an era of adjustment if necessary. But at the end of the day, it can be positive.”
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