Around 232,000 workers have either recovered or have been tested to be free from the Covid-19 virus as of July 16, said the Ministry of Health in a press release dated July 17.

This figure comprises workers in both purpose-built dormitories and factory-converted dormitories.

Testing to be completed by mid-August

Co-chair of the Multi-Ministry Task Force for Covid-19 Lawrence Wong mentioned that the Inter-agency Taskforce (ITF) is in the final stretch of this work and the government expects to complete the testing of all workers by mid-August or even earlier.

Wong highlighted that the remaining workers who have yet to been tested have been isolated and are mostly waiting for their final exit tests, which is to be carried out at the end of their isolation period.

He also pointed out that many of these workers being tested in this final phase are from dormitories with a "high prevalence" of Covid-19 cases.

As such, the ITF is "finding more of them to be tested positive on at the tail end of the final test," resulting in the higher daily number of Covid-19 cases in recent days.

"We expect this trend to continue over the coming days. But the main point is we are completing. We are completing the clearance of all the workers in the dormitories quite soon," Wong said.

Allowing recovered workers to resume work

The Ministry of Health also said that there are presently workers who have recovered and are ready to return to work.

However, they currently cannot do so as some residents in their dormitories or blocks are still being isolated.

In consultation with MOH, the ITF has put in place additional decontamination measures to allow these recovered workers to leave their dormitories to resume work safely without compromising public health.

This will be implemented progressively over the next week.

Employers will be able to check the AccessCode details of their workers to verify their status through the Safe@Work eService on the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) website.

Top image via MOM's Facebook page