Mandatory COVID-19 screenings for foreign workers start tomorrow

KUALA LUMPUR: Beginning tomorrow, employers will have to conduct COVID-19 screening tests for foreign workers at several factories identified by the Human Resource Ministry, said Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

For a start, the tests will focus only on high-risk areas in Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Sabah and Labuan.

He said the companies involved will have to prepare the necessary quarantine stations and Low-Risk COVID-19 Quarantine and Treatment centres.

"The companies will have to bear the costs of managing the stations and centres, as well as worker’s food and board. Employers will have to prepare transport to ferry the workers from the stations and centres and also bear the cost of the employees’ COVID-19 screenings.

"If a worker tests positive using the Antigen rapid test kit (RTK-Ag) and has no symptoms, the worker can be placed in the workers’ dormitory prepared by employers as long as he is isolated from workers who tested negative using the RTK-Ag,” he said at the daily Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) briefing today.

He said if the dormitory conditions were unsuitable, the worker would need to be placed in the low-risk COVID-19 quarantine and treatment centre prepared by the employer.

Ismail Sabri added that workers who are positive on the RTK-Ag test and have serious symptoms will be admitted to hospital while workers confirmed positive through the RT-PCR test would have the option of being placed immediately at the quarantine and treatment centre prepared by the employer or admitted to hospital.

"Workers who test positive using the RTK-Ag test and have mild symptoms will be placed in the quarantine and treatment centre prepared by their employers.

"All patients who are discharged must wear monitoring wristbands that will be of a different colour from home surveillance order wristbands,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ismail Sabri said police detained 741 individuals for violating the standard operating procedures of the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) yesterday, and from that total, 720 individuals were issued compounds and the rest were remanded.

-- BERNAMA