Featured image adapted from Facebook.
Over recent weeks, Singapore has seen an uptick in Covid-19 community cases, a handful of which remain unlinked.
With 6 linked cases, Jin Tai Tong has been identified as a new cluster as of Wednesday (19 May).
In light of the recent cases, 100 employees from the company will undergo quarantine, and all retail outlets will close for disinfection for 2 weeks.
According to Lianhe Wanbao, Jin Tai Tong will be closing all its factories, warehouses, and retail stores for disinfection over the next 2 weeks.
This includes 5 Jin Tai Tong Chinese Medical shops and 6 Jin Tai Mart stores islandwide.
The outlets will reopen on 3 Jun.
Speaking to Lianhe Wanbao, Mr Liu – the managing director of Jin Tai Tong Food Industries – said they are closing for the safety of all employees and customers.
To allay concerns, the company has also decided to heed the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) recommendations and quarantine all employees.
Around 100 Jin Tai Tong employees have since been serving their quarantines at hotels arranged by the authorities.
As of Wednesday (19 May), 5 cases are linked to Jin Tai Tong Food Industries.
The most recent cases involve warehouse assistants aged 26 and 39 at Jin Tai Tong Chinese Medical Centre and Jin Tai Tong Food Industries respectively.
1 more employee who works at the warehouse had purportedly tested positive yesterday (19 May) but the case has not been reported by MOH.
The infected employees have been working at the company’s Kaki Bukit factory and Ubi warehouse and office.
Mr Liu also expressed that while closing retail stores is the right thing to do, the company would have to face costly consequences.
According to Lianhe Wanbao, Mr Liu estimates that the 2-week closure will result in losses up to a few hundred thousand dollars.
One contributing factor is that they’d have to continue paying employees’ wages and rental.
However, Mr Liu says that Jin Tai Tong isn’t the only company suffering during these difficult times. In fact, other small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) continue to be badly affected by the pandemic.
Thus, he took the opportunity to appeal for the government to consider providing additional subsidies to help businesses tide through this difficult period.
Closing stores and warehouses will severely impact businesses that have already been suffering throughout the pandemic.
However, with a resurgence of community cases in Singapore, there is a urgent need to ring-fence and prevent further transmissions.
Hopefully, as individuals and businesses take additional safety measures, Singapore will soon be on the road to recovery again.
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Featured image adapted from Facebook.
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