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SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore is battling new clusters of coronavirus infections in immigrant dormitories that got the go-ahead from authorities, highlighting the difficulty of eradicating the disease, even in a closely monitored population.
As the wealthy city-state slipped into recession, officials facing intense pressure to revive the economy are opting for limited lockdown measures rather than previous sweeping crackdowns, but most low-wage workers are still locked up. .
“There are few options,” said Leong Hoe Nam, an infectious disease expert at the city’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital. “We need to be realistic. We need the economy to continue.”
The dormitories, which house more than 300,000 workers in industries such as construction and shipbuilding, with several assigned to a room, contribute nearly 95% of Singapore’s more than 57,000 infection count.
When authorities discovered the virus that was spreading through the dormitories, they sealed off their occupants, launched vigorous tests and ordered a nationwide lockdown.
Still, an average of 45 new infections have appeared daily since authorities declared last month that all residents had recovered or that tests had shown they were virus-free. Outside, the daily average is only two local cases.
“It just points to the difficulty of quelling this virus,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, who followed the Singapore campaign.
As the virus reappears in bedrooms, workers must avoid new anxiety about their future, while employers must fight to get their numbers back.
“Projects are starting and stopping again,” said Nixon Loh, general manager of Loh and Loh Construction, where 70 of its 280 workers were ordered to stay home again.
DIFFERENT TACK
Many of the workers are not infected, making them susceptible to the virus, but the government says it is prepared.
Rather than shutting down dormitories completely, Singapore is now taking a different tack: letting workers go to work but with repeated testing, increased social distancing, close monitoring, and rapid isolation from close contacts.
“We believe this repeated testing routine, listed, will continue to allow us to eliminate this and bring it under control,” said Tan See Leng, second minister for human resources.
There is also a risk of silent spread as few new infections produce symptoms, while polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests may not detect the virus at the time of a swab.
Some new cases test positive for antibodies, pointing to likely past infections that can no longer spread and infect others, says the Health Ministry.
Other measures to defend against the virus range from fewer workers in dormitories and sewage checks for traces of the virus to separate workplaces to greater use of technology to trace the contacts of infected people.
There is a low risk of another massive dormitory closure and quarantine measures will be more specific, said Hsu Li Yang, an infectious disease expert at the National University of Singapore.
However, most workers are only able to commute between bedrooms and workplaces, except for the most important errands.
“Aside from trucking work trips, we can’t go anywhere,” said construction supervisor Sharif Uddin. “It is a constant mental agitation.”
The construction industry was hit hard when bedrooms were sealed, shrinking 59% on the year in the second quarter when the economy entered a recession.
As more virus clusters emerge, many workers are in quarantine within weeks of resuming their jobs. Some fear that the experience will be repeated even more than becoming infected.
“It feels like we are in a prison,” said construction worker Habibur Rahman, 25. “We just want to get back to normal life. We want to work full time so we can earn and send money home.”
(Interactive graphical tracking of the global spread of the coronavirus: Open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.)
(Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Additional reporting by Ruma Paul in Dhaka and Koustav Samanta in Singapore; Edited by Clarence Fernandez)
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