Covid-19 Infections Surge at One of World’s Largest Medical Glove Makers
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—A sharp rise in coronavirus cases tied to factories and workplaces has led to a Covid-19 resurgence in Malaysia, a sign of how industrial settings—where laborers often work in crowded and poorly ventilated conditions—can become vectors of contagion as global demand recovers.
Malaysia’s government this week counted 83 active clusters of infections connected to workplaces around the country, most prominently an industrial area that houses the world’s largest glove manufacturer. More than 2,500 workers have tested positive at Top Glove Corporation Bhd, which supplies to more than 190 nations and has seen demand for its products, such as disposable medical gloves, shoot up this year.
Top Glove didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about whether its workplace or dormitory conditions contributed to the spread of the virus.
Representatives from a government labor department visited Top Glove factory worker accommodations Thursday, according to the company. Top Glove said in a statement Friday it is “in the process of improving the living quarters of our workers” to meet the requirements of Malaysian law.
The outbreak among migrant workers in Malaysia mirrors the situation earlier this year in neighboring Singapore, which had gained firm control over the virus before transmission at migrant worker dormitories caused a surge in cases in April. Malaysia’s government has ordered nearly 900,000 foreign workers be tested for Covid-19 nationwide as a precaution.
Economic analysts say Malaysia’s government faces a dilemma in deciding whether to reintroduce large-scale movement restrictions, which could damage the economic recovery, or stick to a more targeted approach of closing down factories or areas that have seen spikes in cases, with the risk that they will miss some clusters. At a news conference last week, Noor Hisham, director general of the health ministry, said Malaysia’s nationwide lockdown in April had been effective but extremely expensive, and that the country needed to “balance the economy and health.”
So far the government has opted for more-limited intervention, focusing on at-risk workers, such as a group of airline employees it says may have been exposed to a virus cluster. Earlier this week it announced that around 360 such workers would be isolated at a hotel as a precaution.
Yeah Kim Leng, professor of economics at Sunway University in Malaysia, said the country’s economic recovery would likely continue unless authorities opted for a return to strict lockdown. “We are still not out of the woods,” he said.
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