Taxi & Private-Hire Drivers Must Take COVID-19 Tests Weekly from 1 Nov

By
Sabrina Chua
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Now that the cases are increasingly getting higher, with Wednesday’s daily record reaching a new high of more than 5,000 confirmed cases, Singapore is ramping up testing to ensure that we all stay safe and protected from COVID-19.

Ever since 27 September, Singapore has progressively extended rostered routine testing (RRT) to all employees working in settings that require them to interact with the community frequently. Such settings include those working in shopping malls, supermarkets, last-mile delivery services, as well as public and private transport services.

Now, this RRT has been extended to taxi and private-hire drivers.

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Taxi & Private-Hire Drivers Must Take COVID-19 Tests Weekly from 1 Nov

The Land Transport Authority will require all taxi and private-hire drivers to take COVID-19 tests weekly from 1 November onwards.

You might be wondering, why wasn’t this implemented earlier?

LTA explained that the drivers are self-employed and have flexible working hours that can vary from person to person. As such, it took slightly longer for operators to contact them to coordinate testing arrangements.

And since taxi and private-hire drivers have to drive to multiple places to facilitate their job, they will not have to return to their operators’ offices to undergo employer-supervised testing. Instead, they can just self-test using the antigen rapid test (ART) kits provided by their companies at their own convenience.

For ComfortDelGro, the ART kits provided by the government can be collected by the cabbies at three distribution points.

While they are allowed to do self-testing at their own convenience, they must remember to send their results to their company via their driver app once they are done with the test.

Other Frontliners Also Required To Undergo RRT

Other than taxi and private-hire drivers, delivery platform foodpanda also shared that it has been carrying out mandatory testing for its riders since the middle of October. All of its riders have to take the COVID-19 test at quick test centres because they are constantly completing deliveries and meeting with the community.

Logistics platform Janio is another company that requires its workers to undergo RRT. Mr Nathaniel Yim, the co-founder of the company, said that all of its delivery drivers were registered for the eight-week RRT regime where they have to report to their office to conduct a self-test using ART kits.

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The company started this voluntary exercise on 4 October and offers drivers additional ART kits if they need them.

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Sabrina Chua
[email protected]