At the beginning of March, when Latin America was confirming its first cases of COVID-19, we started taking precautions to protect our employees in Peru. Though it wasn’t required for companies in the country at the time, Hudbay conducted temperature checks, provided masks, and discouraged close contact, such as handshakes. ‘Quick tests’ (antibody tests) were administered to incoming and outbound workers at Constancia.
The Peruvian government declared a state of emergency on March 15, 2020, requiring non-essential businesses to be shut down, initially for a 15-day period. This state of emergency has been extended, most recently to September 30th. On March 19th, we initiated a temporary and orderly suspension of our Constancia mine. During the suspension period, a smaller workforce was maintained at the site to oversee critical aspects of the operation in order to facilitate a quick and efficient restart and ramp-up of the mine.
On May 14th, Constancia received recognition and approval from Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines for its restart protocols and final operating approval was received in mid-May. Due to proactive mine restart planning, the mine achieved normal mill throughput levels on May 18, within 48 hours after restart. The initial six weeks following restart focused on milling activities while processing stockpile ore. This was followed by a ramp-up of mining activities commencing the last week of June with a full ramp-up to normal levels in early July. Enhanced health and safety measures were implemented upon the re-start of operations and remain in place as Hudbay continues to monitor the local impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout the rapidly changing environment, our focus remains on the health and safety of our workforce and the local communities. To protect our workforce, beyond screening for symptoms of COVID-19, the administering of ‘quick tests’ on incoming and outbound workers has continued at testing facilities in Cusco and Arequipa, supervised by the health authorities. Although molecular tests are more accurate, their availability is limited. The quick tests allow us to "triage" potential cases. A positive result from a quick test does not indicate a confirmed COVID-19 case. If a quick test comes back positive, we then refer the case to the public health authorities for further molecular testing and ensure the affected personnel are appropriately quarantined. We have also been able to access a limited number of molecular tests which we are administering to inbound workers as an additional layer of precautionary measures. If or when molecular tests by health authority-certified labs become more readily available, these tests will be added to our protocol and used in place of quick tests, as circumstances warrant.
In addition to testing incoming and outbound workers, we have taken the following steps: implemented procedures for quarantining incoming workers in hotels in Cusco and Arequipa before they travel to site; conducted additional screening protocols; introduced extensive sanitary protocols; enforced workplace physical distancing protocols, and made adjustments to work rotation schedules. Our testing of inbound workers at testing facilities in Cusco and Arequipa has helped protect our workforce and local communities by identifying potentially infected individuals prior to their travel to Constancia. These individuals have been isolated and received medical assistance at the testing location.