Oil-Sands Workers Brace for ‘Hellish’ Outbreak in Remote Camps
- First suspected Covid-19 case reported; awaits confirmation
- Virus adds to worries for industry’s embattled workers
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As if the market crash threating their jobs wasn’t stressful enough, workers in Canada’s oil-sands are bracing for the coronavirus to upend life in the remote camps where they’re lodged.
One suspected case among them is already haunting roughnecks who fly in from across Canada and live for weeks on end in barracks-like facilities built in the boreal forests and marshes of northern Alberta, which houses the world’s third-largest crude reserve. Civeo Corp., a Houston-based company that provides lodging for workers in the Fort McMurray area near oil-sands mines, on Friday said one of its guests “has symptoms consistent with COVID-19, has been tested and we are awaiting results.”