This might sound scary, but here’s a tip: Don’t panic.
Because everything’s done as a precautionary measure, so there’s no need to worry if there would be more of these “evacuations”.
So, what happened this afternoon that had all news outlets sending a notification to us?
300 DBS Staff Members Vacate a Floor on Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC) Tower 3
Yesterday, a DBS employee was tested for the Covid-19. It’s unknown if he or she is part of the 47 confirmed cases, though it most probably isn’t since it was confirmed that the employee was tested positive today.
With that, DBS decided to tell everyone who’s working on the same floor as the confirmed case to vacate the premises by 12pm today, and to work from home instead.
The floor in question is the 43rd storey.
It’s days like this that remote workstations (e.g. we’re using one called AWS Workspace) are useful, as anyone can connect to a cloud desktop they use for work as long as they’ve Internet access.
That, unfortunately, created a bit of panic.
I mean, imagine hundreds of people leaving the place at one go.
It’s unknown whether people from other floors have been affected.
Contact tracing for the newly confirmed case is being conducted.
And as per MOH guidelines, the affected premises are all being deep cleaned and disinfected.
A spokesman from DBS said, “The health and well-being of our staff are a top priority for us, and we will lend them every support to get through these uncertain times.”
Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC) Tower 3
The Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3 has 1.3 million sqft of office space with 46 storeys. DBS, the anchor tenant, takes almost half the space with 600,000 sqft.
The building also houses offices from Ashurst LLP, Clifford Chance, Mead Johnson, McGraw Hill Financial, Lynx Energy, Geo Energy, Regus, WongPartnership and Fitness First, and has an NTUC Foodfare in it.
DBS Premises Has Measures for Temperature Screening
According to DBS, they do have measures in their offices; all its office buildings have temperature screening stations and visitors would need to sign a health and travel history declaration form prior to entering its premises.
While the “evacuation” seems a tad extreme, this incident shows how fast the authorities react with new cases, so kudos to everyone involved.
