An infectious disease expert Dr Ho Pak-leung from the University of Hong Kong urged the government to conduct mass testing for the coronavirus on thousands of migrant domestic workers (PRT) living in boarding houses. After an Indonesian migrant domestic worker who lives in the KL Home Limited agent building house, 375 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai was confirmed positive for COVID-19, Thursday (6/8/2020).
Ho said authorities should not underestimate the risk of cluster infections in crowded boarding houses, after seeing the Covid-19 outbreak in Singapore in a population of migrant workers, who live somewhere in large numbers.
He said officials must act quickly, and test at least 7,000 migrant domestic workers who live in hundreds of boarding houses in Hong Kong. He believes it can be done in one day if the authorities have the determination to do so.
Health authorities said that on Tuesday (4/8), the 37-year-old PMI, who tested positive for COVID-19, had lived with 28 others who were waiting for their visas to be issued for two days. Until now, the government is trying to trace the whereabouts of those who have entered their employer’s house.
Singapore witnessed an explosive growth in Covid-19 cases in May, after clusters were developed in overcrowded dormitories housing migrant workers, where thousands of people share cramped space and living quarters. As in Hong Kong, Singapore has handled the initial wave of coronavirus cases in a relatively successful manner.
Singapore has now recorded more than 53,000 cases of Covid-19, mainly from the dormitories where some 300,000 workers from Bangladesh, India and China are housed.
Singaporean authorities said this month they hoped to lift the quarantine status in all dormitories, with the exception of some blocks that serve as quarantine zones, though they said 89 percent of workers who had been infected had recovered or were free of the virus.
