Migrant worker dormitories—residential complexes where 10–24 workers share living spaces—account for the majority of cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Singapore. To prevent spill-over of transmission to the wider population, starting in early April 2020, residents were confined to their dormitories while measures were put in place to arrest the spread of infection. In this descriptive study we present epidemiological data for a population of more than 60,000 migrant workers living in two barracks-style and four apartment-style dormitories located in western Singapore from 03 April to 10 June 2020.

Our report draws from data obtained over the first 50 days of outbreak management to describe SARS-CoV-2 transmission in high density housing environments. Cumulative counts of SARS-CoV-2 cases and numbers of housing units affected were analysed to report the harmonic means of harmonic means of doubling times and their 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Multiple transmission peaks were identified involving at least 5,467 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection across six dormitories. Our geospatial heat-maps gave an early indication of outbreak severity in affected buildings. We found that the number of cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection doubled every 1.56 days (95% CI 1.29 to 1.96) in barracks-style buildings. The corresponding doubling time for apartment-style buildings was 2.65 days (95% CI 2.01 to 3.87).

Geospatial epidemiology was useful in shaping outbreak management strategies in dormitories. Our results indicate that building design plays an integral role in transmission and should be considered in the prevention of future outbreaks.