Singapore: Ascott is set to operate accommodation vessels typically used for offshore and marine industry staff, in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Singapore is making plans to house hundreds of foreign workers as it looks for alternatives to dormitories where the coronavirus has been spreading rapidly among the country’s tens of thousands of migrant workers, many from South Asia.
According to Reuters, authorities are moving some of the healthy dormitory residents of those facilities to other sites including military camps, an exhibition centre, vacant public housing blocks and the accommodation vessels, which they have called “floating hotels”.
“Each facility can hold a few hundred occupants and can be suitably organised to achieve safe distancing,” said minister of Transport Khaw Boon Wan.
The vessels are docked in a restricted area in a port terminal. The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said it was working with terminal operator PSA Singapore, Keppel Corp’s rig-building unit, floating accommodation barge provider Bibby Maritime Ltd and serviced apartment operator The Ascott Ltd to bring in and manage two floating accommodations.
Khaw released photographs of a basic, clean cabin with three beds covered in blue linen, and said the residents would be able to use a deck for an hour of exercise every day.
Meals will be prepared off-site and delivered to the cabins. A medical facility is also being set up nearby on land.</p
