The Singaporean government moved over a thousand of blue-collar foreign workers into Jurong Camp II and Bedok Camp II in a bid to provide better living conditions during their mandatory 14-day quarantine.
The Ministry of Defence recently released a video depicting the orderly entrance of mask-wearing foreign workers into the camps. Soldiers helped the workers into the camp to settle in. Singaporean authorities said that the two camps were not essential in military operations.
The Ministry of National Development requested that 1,300 workers be housed in the camps while the “Circuit Breaker” is being implemented all over the island.
During their stay in the camps, they would allegedly be required to follow stringent health checks and social distancing to monitor their condition.
From the video, you could see that they have clean beds, orderly facilities, and doctors who could attend to their health needs. The workers would get staggered meal schedules, twice-a-day temperature checks, and ample space for safe distancing measures.
The process for meal preparation has also been changed and the authorities are no longer providing kitchens for workers to cook. The government has instead opted to have the meals delivered to prevent the spread of infection between tenants in the dorms.
Biggest infection clusters
According to a report by Channel News Asia, foreign worker dormitories have emerged as one of the hotbeds of the virus. The S-11 dorm in Punggol was Singapore’s biggest infection cluster overall, with 283 confirmed cases.
Separating the sick workers from the healthy ones is just one part of the strategy Singapore is employing in containing this one cluster.
Reaction to appalling worker dormitory conditions?
Alvinology recently reported on the difficult conditions at one of the foreign worker dormitories tagged by the Ministry of Manpower for 14-day quarantine.
The MOM designated two specific foreign worker dormitories to serve as quarantine locations for 20,000 employees who mostly work in blue-collar jobs in Singapore. These people are usually from Bangladesh and South Asia.
But as clusters of infections emerged from specific dormitories, the government has stepped up its efforts to quarantine these people, effectively limiting their movement to their rooms and the shared hygiene facilities.
They still have recreational time, though, and receive their wages as if they were working.
Netizens once again uploaded photos of the dormitories, now featuring overflowing trash bins and a messy kitchen.
More evidence of the waste disposal situation at the dormitories have emerged. According to reports, these are what the dormitories looked like when the workers moved in.
The workers are provided meals and still receive wages throughout their stay in the dormitories.
More photos of what is allegedly their kitchen area can be seen, which are dirty.
But the Ministry of Manpower said that because of the abrupt orders, they were unable to keep up with maintenance in the first few days of the workers’ quarantines. Reports have said that they have since cleaned and corrected the waste disposal and other details they overlooked.
The difficult conditions have been allegedly addressed, and more dorm and spaces are being identified to house the workers in better facilities.
