By Nadiah Zamlus
SHAH ALAM, Feb 5 — Selangor government continues to focus on carrying out Covid-19 screening on factory workers despite its limited scope of authority.
Selangor Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari said the measure has to be taken following the rapid increase of Covid-19 positive cases among the group which led to the substantial number of daily infections recently.
“Actually, the situation we are facing now is because we failed to learn from Singapore when they were facing the second wave due to the rise in cases among factory workers.
“Therefore, this time we are focused on conducting screening operations at factories. Although the state government’s jurisdiction is limited because factories are supposed to be under the purview of the Human Resource Ministry (MoHR), we still go ahead with it and carry out screenings with the Selangor Task Force for Covid-19 (STFC).
“The screenings are done to enable us to separate the healthy workers from the infected workers, thus preventing the spread of the disease,” he said during a live discourse hosted by Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on Facebook yesterday.
Also featured in the programme titled ‘Covid-19 Discussion: Preparation by States’ were Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow and Negeri Sembilan Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Aminuddin Harun.
Amirudin added that the Selangor administration is also determined to solve the rise in Covid-19 cases among factories immediately following widespread outbreak involving those areas.
“This is due to the deplorable condition of the workers’ accommodations which do not comply with the international standards.
“Not only that, the spike in cases also happened because of accumulated backlog cases that were not reported immediately to the authorities,” he said.
