Nearly 350 workers have been returned to quarantine after COVID-19 reemerged at a dormitory in Tuas, labor officials announced today.
While the source of the infection found at the Space@Tuas dormitory was yet unclear, the authorities suspect residents of one block mingled outside approved zones, violating rules meant to limit any potential quarantine situation to only those in the same level or section. It resulted in an entire block being returned to isolation weeks after long lockdowns ended at many worker dorms that had been ravaged by the virus.
“Safe living measures, however, were not strictly enforced within the affected block where the new case was living in. As such, 342 residents, who work for 27 employers, living in the affected block were deemed at risk and needed to be quarantined,” the Manpower Ministry said in a statement.
The latest case was detected Monday during routine COVID-19 testing, according to the ministry. Affected workers were moved to a government quarantine facility yesterday.
The ministry previously suspected the block’s residents had come into contact with those in another block, fueling fears of wider exposure. Both buildings were locked down as a precaution until investigators determined it was “unlikely,” the ministry said without elaborating. It rescinded the lockdown order for one block and ordered the other to quarantine two weeks.
Space@Tuas, along with other worker dormitories, was declared clear of COVID-19 in August. Weeks later, infection clusters reemerged at over a dozen dormitories.
Today, Singapore logged 21 new cases. Six were cases of domestic transmission, three of which were found in migrant worker housing. Fifteen cases were imported. The official count as of this morning was 57,786 infections and 27 deaths since January.
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