Nearly 1,200 people tested positive for coronavirus at this mine in the Krasnoyarsk region.
A cluster in full Siberia. The largest gold producer in Russia announced Thursday May 21 the death of one of its employees who contracted Covid-19 in a gigantic mine in Siberia, which has become a hotbed of the epidemic for which the army was called in reinforcement. This employee “had been placed on a ventilator and transferred to a medical plane in a local hospital, where doctors fought ten days to save his life”, a spokesman for the Russian company Polyus, owner of the operation, told AFP.
A total of 1,191 workers at this mine in the Krasnoyarsk region (eastern Siberia) tested positive for the new coronavirus, according to the health agency Rospotrebnadzor, which says it checked more than 5,000 employees. Over 90% of the cases detected are asymptomatic, said Rospotrebnadzor. The Ria-Novosti press agency, citing the Polyus press service, specifies that 144 employees are hospitalized.
To stop the spread of the disease, the Russian army intervened and announced Thursday that it has completed the installation of a tent camp where it will be placed in quarantine “up to 2,000” minors. This camp, located in a village in the middle of the taiga, must accommodate employees who have been in contact with people tested positive or who “finding in the risk zone”said the Russian Defense Ministry in a statement. The Russian military also said it had set up a mobile field hospital to receive the sick.
Opened in 1996, the Olimpiada gold mine is one of the largest in the world. It currently has three extraction sites. “The Olimpiada mine is operating normally. All employees who are not in quarantine continue to fulfill their obligations”said Gratchev, Polyus’ general manager, on Monday. Since the start of the epidemic, several isolated mining sites in Russia, notably hydrocarbons, have become hotbeds of Covid-19. According to the latest official report, Russia has recorded 317,554 cases of contamination by the coronavirus, of which 3,099 have been fatal, making it the second country with the most cases, behind the United States.
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