Govt to look into raising housing standards for migrant workers: Josephine Teo

THE government will look into how housing standards for migrant workers can be raised after the novel coronavirus outbreak is brought under control, Singapore's Minister for Manpower has said, even as she acknowledged that a focus on rooming arrangements on their own may not prevent a recurrence.

"The virus respects no housing type, no nationality nor occupation. We will therefore need to relook how everyone interacts with one another at home and at our workplaces. Even the way we socialise will have to change. We will need a focus on public education. So the same for our migrant workers," said Josephine Teo said in a ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday.

She told the House that migrant workers were on her ministry's radar in the initial phases of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) had reached out to dormitory operators in January to be more vigilant and to step up on hygiene standards; this was soon after the multi-ministry task force to coordinate Singapore's response to the coronavirus was set up. 

"In fact, one of the earliest media conferences that Minister Lawrence Wong and I held was at the Tuas View Dormitory, after we inspected their quarantine facilities in early February," she said. Mr Wong, who is National Development Minister, is co-chair of the task force.

Responding to a question from Ang Wei Neng, MP for Jurong Group Representation Constituency (GRC), Mrs Teo laid out the possibilities of how the virus could have spread among migrant workers, based on epidemiological findings. Within the dormitories with clusters, not all blocks or rooms are equally affected, she said. Across different dormitories, infected workers were linked through common work sites and social activities, including shopping, cooking and eating.

She added that many had mild symptoms and were uncovered only because of active case-finding or swab exercises.

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"This may explain why up to the middle of March, the cases of workers at the dormitories testing positive were few and far between," she said.

Given that there appears to be multiple channels of transmission, a multi-faceted approach is needed to deal with the outbreak, she said.

She added that the task force set up to coordinate Singapore's response to the coronavirus pandemic has gone about its work professionally, and with a clear focus on the workers' well-being.

This was done in three phases, she said.

The first phase was about "getting the basics right". This included introducing safe-distancing measures and gazetting certain dormitories as isolation areas. At the same time, more than 10,000 workers in essential services were moved out and progressively tested so that they could continue to work safely.

The second phase was focused on medical operations. This meant the medical-support plan was fleshed out and the infrastructure and personnel steadily built up, she said.

However, Mrs Teo said the authorities identified another concern outside of dormitories: infection among workers in the construction sector was noticeably higher than in the general community, and has not tapered off. This was why all workers within this sector have been put on a mandatory 14-day Stay Home Notice.

Next, they must get ready for the third phase, which focused on recovery.

This involves building up community-recovery facilities and housing recovered workers in suitable accommodation to minimise the risks of recurrent transmissions, and to find a way to allow recovered and uninfected workers to go back to work safely.

She commended the task force for its effort to look after about 400,000 migrant workers, which she said is bigger than the size of two Ang Mo Kio GRCs, adding that the situation has demanded an unprecedented scale and speed of response.

The government will look into how housing standards for migrant workers can be raised, particularly in older dormitories, but this will be done after the crisis blows over.

"As Minister Lawrence Wong said, we are still in the heat of battle. We must be focused on bringing the outbreak under control and work out how we can exit from the circuit breaker and resume normal activities safely," she said, referring to the statement Mr Wong delivered earlier to the House. 

"When this is over, we will reflect and thoroughly look into areas where we could have done better, so that we will be better prepared the next time."