In light of the increased cases of local transmission, the Government has decided to tighten safe management measures by recalibrating the pace and scale at which certain activities can resume.
The Multi-Ministry Taskforce announced the decision at a virtual press conference on 22 January 2021.
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong stated that as of the past week, there was an average of three cases in the community per day, and he urged people with flu-like symptoms to see a doctor as soon as possible.
“While we have built up our contact tracing and testing capabilities to rapidly trace, test and ring-fence cases – we need the first cases to come forward, otherwise they may go on to infect many others before we are able to discover subsequent cases.
“This will put their loved ones and colleagues at risk, and ultimately jeopardise our efforts to fight COVID-19 as a community,” he said.
To mitigate the risk of large community clusters, the Government will impose a cap of eight distinct visitors per household per day from 26 January 2021.
It also advised individuals to limit themselves to visiting two other households at most a day.
The maximum group size for social gatherings outside the house will remain at eight.
Speaking at the conference, Education Minister Lawrence Wong asked the community to be mentally prepared for a quieter Lunar New Year.
“We have to be more disciplined in how we go about our daily activities and interactions. The taskforce will continue to monitor very carefully, the infection situation, and we will not hesitate to take additional measures, if and when necessary,” he said.
The Government had earlier announced the suspension of the pilot programme to allow shortlisted nightclubs and karaoke outlets to resume operations.
Along with the suspension, it will now also postpone the start of the National School Games which was originally scheduled to start in February.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) will review the type of sports that will be allowed to resume and how they can be restarted. More details will be provided by MOE later.
As of 22 January 2021, more than 60,000 individuals have received their first dose of the vaccine.
These include staff working in healthcare, nursing home, frontline and essential services, as well as seniors in nursing homes.
MOH also noted that there will be delays to the shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines due to upgrading works to Pfizer’s manufacturing plant.
The ministry will continue to monitor vaccine supplies closely, ensuring that there will be enough vaccines for all Singaporeans and long-term residents by the third quarter of 2021.
From 27 January 2021, the pilot vaccination programme for seniors will commence in Ang Mo Kio and Tanjong Pagar where larger numbers of seniors reside.
The pilot vaccination programme will enable the ministry to smoothen all operational processes before scaling them up to be carried out nationwide.
MOH said that vaccinations will be progressively extended to seniors across the island from mid-February 2021.
