Penang State Government has begun mass Covid-19 screening of foreign workers on Thursday.
State local government committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said the state government was serious in getting all the 14,436 workers from the construction industry and 36,772 workers from the manufacturing industry screened.
According to Jagdeep, the state do not intent to be complacent with the green zone status. With the opening of the manufacturing and construction industry, the state is enforcing the conditional movement control order (CMCO), in which all foreign workers must be screened.
“We must ensure all the workers are screened before they are allowed to work again as public safety is of the utmost priority,” said Jagdeep told reporters at the site of the mass screening at Padang Polo yesterday.
He said the mass screening of the workers would be done at Padang Polo because hospitals and clinics could not do it fast enough as there were too many of them to be screened.
The mass screen would delay the reopening of the construction and manufacturing industry, delaying the economic recovery of the state.
The state, he said, was assisted in the screening process by doctors and nurses from government hospitals, with facilities provided by a private lab.
Jagdeep said the entire screening process would strictly follow the standard operating procedures of the conditional MCO.
The cost of screening the construction workers is borne by the members of the Penang Real Estate and Housing Developers Association and Master Builders Association while individual employers bear the cost for foreign workers from the manufacturing industry, according to Jagdeep.
Jagdeep said all companies must comply and ensure the screenings were carried out as stern action would be taken by the police if companies could not produce certification during checks.
Source: The Star, 15.05.2020