Fund for front-line workers fighting coronavirus outbreak raises $3.2m

About $3.2 million has been raised so far for a fund that aims to help front-line workers combating the coronavirus outbreak, said Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee yesterday.

Called The Courage Fund, it was set up in 2003 for healthcare workers and victims who battled the severe acute respiratory syndrome.

The fund is now being used again to help front-line workers, including doctors, nurses and cleaners, affected by the outbreak.

Other groups that the fund will assist are volunteers who contract the virus after stepping forward to help fight it and Covid-19 patients.

A panel that manages the Courage Fund will assess all cases and applications and disburse the support accordingly, added Mr Lee, who is also Second Minister for National Development, on the sidelines of his visit to a government quarantine facility in Loyang.

During his visit, Mr Lee greeted security officers and staff at the Civil Service Club in Loyang, which has been converted into a government quarantine facility and can accommodate about 132 people.

There was no one quarantined at the facility during Mr Lee's visit, but it had been at its busiest last month, when two specially arranged flights returned after evacuating 266 Singaporeans and their families from Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak in China.

Government quarantine facilities located across the island, at places such as the SAF Changi Chalet, Outward Bound Singapore and university hostels, can house about 2,000 people, according to a Ministry of National Development fact sheet.

More than 200 Certis security officers are deployed daily to secure entry into the facilities and undertake patrolling duties. About 20 people are being quarantined in such facilities as of Friday.

Non-compliance with the quarantine order will lead to severe penalties, the fact sheet said.

The average room size at the Civil Service Club @ Loyang is 12 sq m, and the facility has Internet service offering speeds of up to 1Gbps.

Meals are provided, but quarantined people are to collect food on a table outside their rooms, where they have been confined. Necessities, such as towels, detergent and shower gel, will also be distributed.

Madam Yang San, 32, who stayed at the National Community Leadership Institute in South Buona Vista for two weeks last month, said that she was touched by the staff's actions during her quarantine period.

Madam Yang, her husband and two children landed in Singapore on Feb 9 on the evacuation flight from Wuhan, the capital of Hubei.

She had been visiting her hometown Enshi, a city in Hubei.

With the Government's quarantine order in place, the family were not able to go back to their home and had to be isolated in the facility.

Madam Yang, who works as a manager in the IT industry, told The Sunday Times in Mandarin: "The stay was much better than we expected."

Her husband, Mr Sohaib Sajid, 33, who works in the semiconductor industry, was with their two-year-old son in another room. "Still, after two weeks of quarantine, I started to miss home," she said.