Covid-19: Almost half of migrant workers in Singapore have already been infected

The rate of infection is three times higher among migrants than in the rest of the country’s population. Human rights groups condemn the measures taken by the government for this community.

ROSLAN RAHMAN / AFP via Getty Images

About 47% foreign workers in Singapore have been infected with the new coronavirus in the past nine months, the  BBC said. The data represent more than 150,000 people and indicate that the infection rate in this community is three times higher than in the rest of the country’s population. Human rights groups say they are not surprised.

“There is no justification for Singapore to treat migrant workers as prisoners,” says Alex Au, of the organization Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2). Cases among foreigners exploded in April and since then they remain closed in the dormitories, sometimes with hundreds of people. “Many have been locked up for eight months,” continues Au. Removing migrants from the equation, only 4,000 people contracted the virus in the country. 

The total number of workers who have had or have the coronavirus was made public this Monday: more than 54,000 migrants tested positive for the PCR test, the swab, but it has now been found, through serological tests, that more than 98,000 had contracted the disease since the beginning of the pandemic. The Ministry of Health said that all people with a positive test were isolated and received medical care. 

At the moment, health authorities are still waiting for the response of about 65,000 tests, so the number of infected people may increase. “These new numbers are not surprising. In the middle of the year, workers with positive results told us that they were told to stay in their rooms and that they were not taken into isolation. They stayed in touch with their roommates, ”says Au.

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