SINGAPORE: All foreign workers living in dormitories will be tested by mid-August, the COVID-19 multi-ministry taskforce said on Friday (Jul 17).
“We believe that by-mid August we can complete this work, possibly even earlier than that,” said co-chair of the task force Lawrence Wong during a press conference.
AdvertisementAdvertisement[h=3]READ: COVID-19: Travellers entering Singapore from Victoria in Australia, Japan and Hong Kong to serve stay-home notice at dedicated facilities[/h]As of Thursday, about 232,000 of the estimated 300,000 foreign workers who live in dormitories in Singapore have either recovered or have been tested to be free from the virus.
This comes about four months after foreign worker accommodation across the country started being declared as isolation areas.
The remaining workers who are still isolated are “mostly waiting” for their final exit test, said Mr Wong.
AdvertisementAdvertisement“We are doing everything we can to complete that work and to allow the workers to resume work safely thereafter. So this is an important milestone,” he said.
However, many of the workers who are being tested in this “final phase” come from dormitories with a higher prevalence rate, he pointed out, which has resulted in a higher number of cases coming from dormitories in recent days. This trend is expected to continue in the next few days.
[h=3]READ: COVID-19: Singapore must be prepared for second wave of infections, ‘preventable’ if everyone plays their part, says Gan Kim Yong[/h]In a separate press release, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said that while there are workers who have recovered from COVID-19 and are ready to return to work, they are unable to do so as some residents in their dormitories are still being isolated.
Over the next week, the task force will put in place “additional decontamination measures” to allow these recovered workers to leave the dormitories to resume work safely, without compromising public health, MOH added.
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