Last Friday, the Safe Return Committee of the Universidad de Concepción, UdeC, visited the facilities of the Center for Research in Mathematical Engineering, CI²MA, to certify compliance with the requests of the action plan proposed by the UdeC Crisis Committee last December, at the request of the Center Administration.  

“We are working every day to ensure the care of all the people associated with the Center. In this, the feedback from the Crisis Committee of our University has been very important, who have given us clear guidelines to be able to safely carry out our work in the CI²MA facilities. We will continue to be vigilant in implementing any additional measures that may be dictated by the competent health authority in order to minimize any risk of contagion from COVID, as well as any other occupational risk”, Dr. Rodolfo Araya Durán, Director of CI²MA, explained 

The Center, located in cabin 6, is the venue for permanent inter-institutional and international collaboration, in activities that include the participation of undergraduate students from various universities to postdoctoral scientists from Chile and other parts of the planet. 

The measures described in the action plan set in December included some recommendations such as having alcohol gel dispensers in the workplace, and other mandatory measures, derived from the Step-by-Step Labor plan of the health authority, such as ensure proper ventilation of spaces and physical distancing in all common areas of the building, in addition to other practices related to the planned disinfection of surfaces and work environments. 

Given that all these requests have already been implemented by the Center, Gonzalo Parra Lagos, in charge of Risk Prevention at the Occupational Safety and Health Unit UdeC, stressed that "on the first visit, we were left with many observations, since it is a distribution which was closed since the beginning of the pandemic. Today we find that everything is implemented, what we recommend and that they followed the instructions that are made available on the page. 

"We see," added the specialist, "that the director's disposition is very good, to worry about the safety of the people in charge of him”. In this way, the CI²MA ascribes to a series of measures that are being implemented in the dependencies of the three campuses of our University, within the framework of the COVID Seal Recertification process that the ACHS granted to the UdeC in 2021. 

Safe Return 

“On March 1, the transition was made, and we passed from the Crisis Committee, a large team that was supporting all the departments on the three campuses for the implementation of preventive measures against COVID,” Parra explained. 

“The Safe Return team”, he explained, “which is, mainly, the Occupational Health and Safety Unit, USSO, led by Cecilia Saavedra, Eduardo Cabezas and Sandra Aguilar and as well as the Crisis Committee took charge of the implementation of All these procedures and instructions for all the staff, now it is up to us to carry out these accompaniment visits to clarify doubts and that things are being fulfilled, mainly with the students, who have been away for more than 2 years. The workers are already quite adapted to this new reality of care”-