At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, mining giant Vale shut down its Voisey’s Bay mine for three months to protect the health and well-being of its employees and the nearby Nunatsiavut Inuit communities.

With the arrival of the highly contagious Omicron COVID-19 variant and subvariants, health officials conceded that most people will likely to get COVID-19.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has since provided guidance that residents will have to live with this “new normal” and make personal choices based on their own situations.

As a Nunatsiavut beneficiary, a public health researcher and, until recently, a member of the Vale team managing COVID-19 in Voisey’s Bay, I believe more attention to impacts of living with this “new normal” in Nunatsiavut is critically necessary to protect the health and well-being of communities.

Managing COVID-19 in Voisey’s Bay
Voisey’s Bay is a fly-in/fly-out nickel, copper and cobalt mine located near Nain, Nunatsiavut, the northernmost community in Newfoundland and Labrador with approximately 1,100 (mostly Inuit) residents.

With a $2 billion mine expansion underway, there were approximately 900 employees in Voisey’s Bay at the onset of COVID-19. When it shut down, Vale sent home most employees with pay, and we immediately began the work to safely re-open the mine, which happened three months later.

Raad more- https://theconversation.com/as-mining-activity-expands-in-northern-labrador-covid-19s-new-normal-difficult-to-accept-for-nunatsiavut-inuit-communities-181250