The Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) has revealed that, as of April 26, there have been 1909 registered COVID-19 cases among expatriate workers, of which 95.5% work for business employers, with only 1.7% on flexible work permits from the registered expatriate workers.
“The rest of cases are amongst expatriates with visit visas, enrolled visas, or house workers. 89% of the 1909 registered COVID-19 cases are among expatriate workers with legal permits, and 9% among workers with non-compliant permits, whilst 2% are amongst expatriates with visitor visas,” said LMRA Chief Executive, HE Ausamah bin Abdullah Al Absi.
The LMRA has coordinated with businesses owners to provide additional housing for their expatriate workers to self-isolate. Currently, business owners have provided 59% of the total buildings being used for self-isolation, accommodating 7046 workers. Meals, medication and care continue to be provided, under the supervision of the LMRA.
“42% of the buildings designated for self-isolation by expatriate workers are self-provided accommodation. These buildings are currently accommodating 2739 workers, with the Kingdom providing these individuals with food and medication,” HE explained.
“The Kingdom has provided 23,500 meals to expatriate workers over the past 5 days and that, since February, the LMRA has circulated 1,719,206 awareness brochures amongst expatriate workers, and 577,000 expatriate workers have visited the LMRA Facebook awareness page,” HE added.
The LMRA, in coordination with the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Health, has developed a comprehensive contact tracing plan to flag active cases and their contacts amongst expatriate workers, while clarifying whether their residences are owned by an employer or are self-provided shared accommodation. “Meals are regularly provided to workers living in self-provided shared accommodation, and the relevant authorities continue to regularly visit these residences to log necessary public health information,” HE said.
“The LMRA is also conducting outreach to businesses in order to record information on the expatriate workers, and to facilitate testing appointments for contacts of active cases,” he added.
This was stated during a press conference held by the National Taskforce for Combating the Coronavirus (COVID-19) yesterday at the Crown Prince Centre for Training and Medical Research at the Bahrain Defence Force Hospital, to highlight COVID-19 related measures established within the Kingdom and to provide an update on mitigation efforts.
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