Covid19 - New solutions needed to lower the fear of foreign workers

Migrant workers in Singapore are living in fear following a surge of coronavirus infections in their dormitories where they say cramped and filthy conditions make social distancing impossible....

One worker from Bangladesh, who lives in a dorm where there are several known infections but has not yet been locked down, told AFP social distancing to halt the spread of the virus was not possible.
“One small room with 12 people living together… how can we make social distance?” the labourer said in English, on the condition of anonymity.

He said hygiene standards were poor and workers were forced to use a communal cooking area and bathroom....

‘Recipe for disaster’ -There are about 280,000 migrant construction workers in Singapore who mostly live in self-contained dorms, with shops and other facilities on-site. They are often located in less desirable parts of the city, meaning they mix little with Singaporeans....

Writing on Facebook, veteran Singapore diplomat Tommy Koh said it should be a “wake-up call to treat our indispensable foreign workers like a first world country should, and not in the disgraceful way in which they are treated now”....


The above are extracts from an article about the fears of foreign workers written by Sam Reeves / Catherine Lai and posted in theindependent.sg

From the above comments it is clear that many things have to be done to improve the conditions of the foreign workers working in Singapore. The location and size of the rooms in the dormitories need to change. Locate them nearer to the city or more desirable parts of Singapore where Singaporeans lived so that they don't feel being isolated, distanced, not wanted, rejected. They need love and acceptance and want to live among the Singaporeans, like Singaporeans. The 12 persons to a room must go. They should live like Singaporeans, 2 to a room max. They are in first world Singapore and should be treated like first world people, living like first world people in healthy and decent living quarters. How can they be made to live like the Sin kehs in the early 1900s?

The vacated flats due for demolition under SERS would come in very handy to give a new life to the migrant workers. 280,000, using a 3rm flat for computation, with 4 in a flat, only 70,000 flats would be needed. This should not pose a problem to HDB. They can always build more if not enough. It would be a boost to the construction industry. Then we would have happy first world workers from third world countries living with first world Singaporeans... and a happy ending as they live happily together forever. And the risk of virus infection would also be lower.

Seriously, is this the solution? What if the foreign workers go up to 500,000 or a million or more with the growing population to sell more flats and to consume more of everything, including essential services policies to push for GDP growth, there may be a need to build a few new towns for foreign workers for them to live like Singaporeans and enjoy the Singaporean standard of living.

What do you think?