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TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2020
Eileen Ng
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA (AP) —
Weeks after two of his roommates
were diagnosed with COVID19,
Mohamad Arif Hassan said he’s still
waiting to be tested for the corona-
virus. Quarantined in his room in a
sprawling foreign workers’ dormito-
ry that has emerged as Singapore’s
biggest viral cluster, Arif said he
isn’t too worried because neither
he nor his eight other roommates
have any symptoms.
Still, the 28-year-old Bangla-
deshi construction worker couldn’t
be blamed if he were more than just
a bit concerned.
Infections in Singapore, an af-
luent Southeast Asian city-state of
fewer than six million people, have
jumped more than a hundredfold
in two months — from 226 in mid-
March to more than 23,000, the
most in Asia after China, India and
Pakistan. Only 20 of the infections
have resulted in deaths.
About 90 per cent of Singapore’s
cases are linked to crowded foreign
workers’ dormitories that were a
blind spot in the government’s crisis
management. Arif’s dorm complex,
which has 14,000 beds, accounts
for 11 per cent of total infections,
with over 2,500 cases.
This massive second wave of in-
fections caught Singapore off guard
and exposed the danger of over-
looking marginalised groups during
a health crisis.
Despite warnings from human
rights activists as early as February
about the dorms’ crowded and of-
ten unsanitary living conditions, no
action was taken until cases spread
rampantly last month.
Singapore’s costly oversight
was also an important lesson to
other countries in the region with
large migrant populations.
Neighbouring Malaysia recently
announced mandatory coronavirus
testing for its more than two million
foreign workers after dozens were
diagnosed with COVID19.
The misjudgment was also an
embarrassment for Prime Minis-
ter Lee Hsien Loong’s government
ahead of a general election antici-
pated in the next few months that is
expected to be the last for Lee, who
has led Singapore since 2004 and is
planning to retire soon.
Singapore’s nanny state gov-
ernment, which won global praise
for its meticulous contact tracing
and testing in the early stages of
the crisis, quickly moved to con-
tain the problem by treating the
lare-up in the dorms as a sepa-
rate outbreak from that in the local
community, a policy that some say
is discriminatory.
The government shut schools
and nonessential businesses island-
wide on April 7.
So-called “safe distancing am-
bassadors” were recruited to re-
mind people to wear masks and
stay at least a metre apart from
each other in public places, or face
heavy penalties.
Meanwhile, all construction
sites and dorms were locked down
and foreign workers largely con-
A tale of two outbreaks: Singapore tackles a
costly setback
ined in their rooms. More than
10,000 foreign workers in essential
services were moved to safer sites
to reduce crowding, and testing
was ramped up to include people
with no symptoms.
In Arif’s S11 Punggol dorm — ad-
vertised as the cheapest in Singa-
pore — police have mounted a 24-
hour patrol of the 13 multi-coloured
housing blocks located in the is-
land’s northeast.
Arif, who was sharing a
room with 11 other workers, said
one of them was moved to an
army camp in early April to help
ease overcrowding.
Shortly afterward, another room-
mate was hospitalised with a fever,
and on April 17 another was isolated
with light symptoms, with both test-
ing positive for the coronavirus.
Arif said he hasn’t been tested
yet because thousands of resi-
dents of his dorm will probably
have to be tested. But he said he
was comforted by Singapore’s top-
notch medical facilities and its rela-
tively low number of deaths from
the virus.
He gets food delivered to his
room, free Wi-Fi on his cellphone
and, most importantly, he said the
government has pledged that the
workers’ salaries will be paid.
“I am not worried because the
government is taking good care
of us like Singaporeans,” said Arif,
who has lived in Singapore for sev-
en years.
“Right now, we take our tem-
perature twice a day, try to stay a
metre apart from each other and
constantly use hand sanitiser.”
Once belittled as a tiny red
dot on the global map, Singapore
has relied on overseas workers to
build infrastructure and help power
its growth into one of the world’s
wealthiest nations.
Some 1.4 million foreign work-
ers live in the city-state, account-
ing for 38 per cent of its workforce.
At least two thirds are low-wage,
transient migrants from across Asia
performing blue-collar jobs that
locals shun, such as construction,
shipping and maintenance, as well
as working as maids.
Roughly 250,000of themigrants
live in 43 privately run dormitories
mostly tucked away in the outskirts
far from Singapore’s stunning sky-
scrapers and luxury malls. Workers
sleep in bunk beds in rooms usually
packed with 12 people, sometimes
up to 20, with a required minimum
living space of 4.5 square metres
per person.
Another 120,000 migrant la-
bourers live in factory-converted
hostels or temporary facilities at
work sites, where conditions are
sometimes even more dismal.
MostofSingapore’smigrantsearn
between SGD500 and SGD1,000
(USD354USD708) a month.
Since last month, the govern-
ment’s infection data has separated
foreign workers’ cases from those
among the general population.
Although cases continue to rise
among foreign workers, infections
have decreased in the local com-
munity. The government plans to
gradually reopen the economy to-
day before island-wide restrictions
end June 1, eager to show that it
has remedied the situation and that
measures have worked.
“The larger narrative that can-
not be missed is the tale of two out-
breaks in Singapore,” said Eugene
Tan, law professor at Singapore
Management University. “The out-
break that Singaporeans should pay
attention to is the local community.
The other outbreak of foreign work-
ers is getting its due attention from
the government, but it should not
be one that Singaporeans should
be unduly concerned about.”
A team of migrant workers trims the trees along Holland Road in Singapore
A foreign worker talks on the phone outside his room at the WestLite Toh Guan dormitory after it was declared an
isolation area under the Infectious Diseases Act, in Singapore
People sit outside a building balcony at the S11 Punggol, a complex of dormitory buildings for foreign workers in
Singapore. PHOTOS: AP