Contact tracing tools are expected to be useful in protecting the general population, but in an industrial setting, there are some questions pertaining to how the technologies would best be used to protect workers.
With our lives changed because of stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic, many industries across a wide range of sectors – chemicals, energy, mining, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and steel – along with manufacturers providing equipment and supplies to these industries, have been positioning themselves as ”essential businesses,” meaning they have stayed open during the lockdown.
According to CBC Canada, there are some industrial workplaces where certain protective equipment, technology, and physical distancing isn’t always practical.
Meat-processing facilities in Canada and the United States are just one type of industry where social distancing has proven to be a problem. The petroleum sector has also been singled out as infections in several provinces traced back to a single Alberta oilsands work camp.
“There is an inherently riskier nature to working in those settings, compared to me working in an office building far apart, in my little cubicle, from other people,” said Dr. Jia Hu, a public health physician with Alberta Health Services. As part of his job with AHS, he helps co-ordinate contract tracing for the province.
Solutions specifically for the industrial sector
Technology companies are working hard to develop contact tracing technologies specifically for industrial workplaces. One such company is Calgary-based Blackline Safety Corp. – a global leader of cloud-connected safety and gas detection solutions.
The company has launched a new contact tracing tool for industrial businesses that picks up where smartphone-based solutions leave off. Blackline uses a “combination of their intrinsically safe G7 safety wearables and our Loner Mobile smartphone app.”
Employee location data streams to the Blackline Safety Cloud and powers interactive contact tracing reports online. Should an employee present with symptoms or test positive for the COVID-19 virus, the tool can retrace the individual’s steps, see where he or she may have had contact with other coworkers and who those individuals are.
Because smartphones are not permitted in many workplaces due to safety concerns, Blackline developed a wearable device which according to the company. is already used by 60,000 workers in Canada and around the world.
Cody Slater, chief executive of Blackline, sees potential use for the technology in many sectors, such as utilities, food processing plants, and chemical facilities, among others. “This really gives companies a proactive tool to manage their workforce in the world of COVID,” he said.
