Foreign Worker Infections Push Singapore Cases to New Record
Foreign Worker Infections Push Singapore Cases to New Record
(Bloomberg) -- Singapore reported its highest daily increase of coronavirus cases for a second consecutive day just as the city-state imposes a weeks-long partial lockdown, as infections continue to surge among low-wage foreign workers housed in dormitories.
Authorities said an additional 287 cases were confirmed on Thursday, bringing the total to 1,910 in the country. Of the new cases, more than 200 infections are related to the dormitories that house the migrant workers in close quarters, officials said at a briefing. Cases reported Thursday were double the number the previous day.
The facilities housing thousands of foreign workers have emerged as one of Singapore’s biggest challenges in its fight to stem the coronavirus. With the new cases, those groups now account for about a quarter of all infections. Health minister Gan Kim Yong said the overall number of cases is expected to rise in the short term before the containment measures take effect.
The city-state is grappling with a pace of infections that’s picking up among workers staying in the dormitories, at a time when it appears to be stabilizing across the country, officials said. Four dormitories have already been designated as “isolation areas”, though screening measures will now be applied across the 43 facilities in the country, said Lawrence Wong, minister for national development who co-chairs a taskforce to fight the virus.
Singapore pledged to reduce the number of people living in dormitories by moving them to other venues, such as re-purposed convention centers, hotels, military camps and vacant government flats. It also promised to create more medical facilities and aggressively test the people living in the dorms.
“Essentially, we are sparing no effort to contain the spread of the virus in the foreign worker dormitories,” Wong said. “We have a responsibility for these foreign workers who have come all the way here at considerable expense to make a living in Singapore.”
Tighter Measures
About 5,000 healthy workers operating in essential services have already moved out of the facilities, Josephine Teo, Singapore’s minister for manpower, said at the briefing.
Singapore, which has banned social gatherings and shut most workplaces till at least May 4, may have to introduce tighter measures if people continue not to heed the government’s orders to stay away from one another, Wong said.
Sports stadiums that were previously open will now be closed, and people who handle and deliver food may be required to wear masks, he said. Authorities may also consider further restrictions on wet markets, where many people go to buy groceries and daily necessities, should there continue to be high traffic to these areas, he said.
The country’s partial lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus could cost the economy about S$10 billion ($7 billion) in lost output, Maybank Kim Eng Research Pte. estimates.
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