Coronavirus: Singapore’s Covid-19 cases to rise as not all migrant workers are being tested

Figures will ‘catch up’ as further tests take place, says director of medical services as number of cases nears 15,000

Lag is not due to ‘fudging or dodging’, he says, but because government is prioritising isolating workers over testing them

Reading Time:3 minutes

Migrant workers sit outside their rooms at a dormitory in Singapore during the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:00pm, 28 Apr 2020Updated: 10:35pm, 28 Apr 2020

Singapore has reported a further 528 Covid-19 infections to bring its total to 14,951, with authorities saying the true number may be even higher as not all sick migrant workers are being tested.

The country’s director of medical services Kenneth Mak on Tuesday said the figures would “catch up” as further testing of the workers took place. However, he said this was not because the government was “fudging or dodging” cases, but because it was prioritising isolating infected workers over testing.

Mak said many of the workers thought to be infected were “very, very well” and showed minimal symptoms but would be tested before it was decided if they could go back into the community.

Singapore has seen a large increase in Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the month when it had just 1,000 cases. Almost 90 per cent of the new cases are among migrant workers, who are housed in cramped dormitories that help the virus to spread. Over the past week, cases in the rest of the community have averaged just 20 new cases per day.

Mak’s comments came after the infectious diseases expert Dale Fisher said at the weekend that the infection rate in some dormitories was so high that it was assumed all sick workers had the disease and all were being isolated immediately without testing.

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