Covid19 - 20,000 men under 14 days lockdown in dormitories

On April 1st I asked whether it was a fools day or a day of wisdom to decide tougher measures in view of the community spread that is getting more serious. 3 days later the govt announced that there will be a partial lockdown, called circuit breaker on 7 April. The semi lockdown is one week late. In the meantime we saw the biggest one day infection rate of 120 cases on 5 April and two workers domitories being declared as isolation centres.  All in 20,000 foreign workers would be lockdown in the two dormitories after two big clusters emerged from them, ie the S11 Dormitory in Seletar North (13,000 men) and the Westlite Toh Guan dormitory(7,000 men) in Toh Guan Road. S11 has 63 confirmed cases while Toh Guan has 28 cases at this moment of writing(6 April).

The locking down of 20,000 workers is only the first step. Now contact tracing of  the workers' companion should be on the way, many are foreign maids. This would be linked directly to their employers and their respective families. The possibility of the workers' companion being tested positive is high, and so will be their respective employers. How big these two clusters will be only time will tell.

And this is only the beginning of the problem, 20,000 people isolated. This brings to mind the isolation and containment of several thousand holiday makers in the cruise ships. The situation is quite similar and the risk as well. How many more of these workers in the isolation centres would eventually also be infected? If the experience of what happened in the cruise is to be repeated, the situation is dire.

If, I say if, the infection rate picks up and the workers in the centres are stricken by fear that they too would get infected, the big question is whether they would do a breakout. This likelihood is going to pose a big security problem to the gate keepers. How to guard and prevent a breakout of 10,000 to 20,000 foreigner workers fearing for their lives? These are not sophisticated people but poorly educated villagers and getting hysteria, being very frighten and running wild cannot be ruled out.

How many police or soldiers would be needed to guard these interned workers? If this thing explodes, it would be many times more serious than the Little India Incident and many times more difficult to control and to bring them back to an isolation centre. If there is a breakout and with some already infected, it would be a very serious problem. Controlling 20,000 people that are stricken with fear and panicking would need many times more manpower to do so unless the centres are secured before hand with effective barriers to reduce the workload of the gate keepers.

This is a hot potato and managing it is not easy when hell breaks loose. When they are so frighten and decide to run for their lives....

PS. 

The nation’s leading infectious disease specialist said Sunday night that as many as half the people infected with the virus may not have any symptoms, a much larger estimate than the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave last week.

“It’s somewhere between 25 and 50 percent,” said the specialist, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, during a briefing by President Trump and members of his coronavirus task force on Sunday. NYT