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SINGAPORE – Two floating accommodation facilities parked in a restricted area at Tanjong Pagar Terminal will house healthy foreign workers from this week.
Each can carry a few hundred people and organize to achieve a safe distance, Transportation Minister Khaw Boon Wan said after a visit to one of the facilities on Sunday (April 12).
Meals can be prepared off-site and delivered to cabins to minimize mixing, he added in a Facebook post.
He said groups of coronaviruses in foreign workers’ dormitories are a major concern, and efforts are being made to reduce the density within each dormitory.
“In China, transmission within families has been shown to be an important engine. Each bedroom is practically a large family unit, hence our concern,” said Khaw, who is also Coordinating Minister of Infrastructure.
While building new bedrooms will take time, making use of such floating accommodation facilities, typically used by those in the maritime and marine industries, was another solution, he said.
Workers can get fresh air on the outdoor deck to exercise an hour a day, he added in his post. There is also a medical center that can care for sick workers.
They must go through health checks, including swab tests for Covid-19, before boarding the center.
They also have to follow public health measures like minimizing interaction with other occupants.
Last Thursday, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs the multi-ministry working group addressing the outbreak, said during a press conference that the number of workers in each dormitory must be reduced in order for effective measures to be implemented. public health. instead.
Foreign worker dormitories have been a growing source of concern in the outbreak.
More than 10 of the 43 bedrooms in Singapore have been grouped so far.
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