Migrant workers were seen in a quarantined dormitory building in Singapore on May 20. Roslan Rahman / AFP / Getty Images
Singapore, which has dealt with an outbreak of coronavirus infection among its migrant workers, is building a new hostel with better standards.
At the end of this year, the country plans to create additional space to accommodate around 60,000 workers, the Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of Labor said in a joint media release.
Long-term, the new boarding house is specifically designed to accommodate up to 100,000 workers to replace short and medium term housing.
“We aim to make boarding life and design more resilient to public health risks including pandemics, with improved living standards that are a benchmark both domestically and internationally,” the ministry said in a release. “We will take lessons from the current COVID pandemic.”
For starters, a series of upgraded standards will be trialled in the new fast-build dormitory. The standards cover six or more square meters (64 or more square feet) per resident, 10 or fewer beds per room and at least one toilet, bathroom and sink of up to five beds, according to the ministry.
It accounts for the majority of Singapore’s workforce, 1.4 million migrant worker live in city-states – mostly working in construction, unskilled laborers and households. Of these, around 200,000 live in 43 dormitories, according to the Minister of Labor Josephine Teo.
Each dormitory room accommodates about 10 to 20 residents. They share toilet and bathroom facilities, eat in public areas, and sleep only a few feet from each other. It is almost impossible to do social distance.
On Monday, Singapore confirmed 408 new cases of the corona virus – all of them working permit holders living in dormitories. This brings the total number of state cases to 35,292, of which 33,027 (93.6%) are boarders.
