Coronavirus: 2 floating accommodation at Tanjong Pagar Terminal to house foreign workers
Each floating accommodation facility can take a few hundred people.
PHOTO: The Straits Times
PUBLISHED ONApril 13, 2020 3:12 AMByLim Min Zhang
SINGAPORE - Two floating accommodation facilities parked in a restricted area at Tanjong Pagar Terminal will house healthy foreign workers from this week.
Each can take a few hundred people, and be organised to achieve safe distancing, said Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan, after a visit to one of the facilities on Sunday (April 12).
Meals can be prepared off-site and delivered to the cabins to minimise inter-mingling, he added in a Facebook post.
He said coronavirus clusters in foreign worker dormitories are a grave concern, and efforts are being made to reduce the density within each dormitory.
"In China, transmission within families has been shown to be a major driver. Each dorm is practically a huge family unit, hence our concern," said Mr Khaw, who is also Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure.
While building new dormitories will take time, making use of such floating accommodation facilities - typically used by those in offshore and marine industries - was another solution, he said.
Workers can have fresh air at the open air deck to exercise an hour a day, he added in his post. There is also a medical facility that can attend to workers who are ill.
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They have to go though health checks, including swab tests for Covid-19, before boarding the facility.
They also have to follow public health measures such as minimising interaction with other occupants.
Last Thursday, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs the multi-ministry task force tackling the outbreak, said during a press conference that the number of workers in each dormitory needs to be reduced so that effective public health measures can be put in place.
Foreign worker dormitories have been a growing source of concern in the outbreak.
More than 10 out of 43 dormitories in Singapore have been found to be clusters so far.
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.