The Government will take more stringent measures to test, contact trace and vaccinate in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the intent during a live broadcast on 31 May 2021.
The measures come after reports of new clusters of infections being found in the local community as more infectious strains of the virus emerge around the world.
Singapore is currently battling the B.1.617.2 variant of the virus, which was first detected in India and has now been reported in over 50 countries.
Mr Lee said: “More variants will inevitably emerge, and we will have to deal with them too… we must continually adjust our strategies and raise our game to keep COVID-19 under control.”
Testing for the virus will be done faster, more liberally and as well as extensively moving forward.
Mr Lee said that tests will not only be done to identify infections that have already occurred, but also prior.
“We will also routinely and regularly test people who appear well, in normal work or social or community settings, to make these places safe … You should expect routine, large-scale, fast and simple testing to be part of our new normal,” he explained.
The Antigen Rapid Test (ART), which produces results much faster than the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test, will now be given to all patients when they visit general practitioner clinics or polyclinics with an acute respiratory infection.
ART takes approximately 30 minutes to determine if a person has COVID-19.
The Government has now also started piloting the use of ART for regular surveillance testing for workers in dormitories, construction sites, airport and selected marine shipyards. This is on top of the PCR-based Rostered Routine Testing (RRT) that these workers are required to take.
Individuals who test positive on their ART will undergo a PCR test to confirm if they have been infected with COVID-19.
Moving forward, those who have been in direct contact with a COVID-19 case will be isolated immediately.
Household members of this first-degree contact will also be notified to isolate themselves with immediate effect, even before the first-degree contact receives his or her COVID-19 test results.
At a Multi-Ministry Taskforce (MTF) press conference that followed Mr Lee’s speech, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said that close to 70 per cent of all new linked cases are due to household transmission.
Vaccinations in the next two months will be sped up with first dose vaccinations in mind, instead of getting people to complete their two-dose treatment, as announced by the taskforce recently.
Mr Lee said: “We want to protect as many Singaporeans as possible, and as soon as we can, especially with the new COVID-19 variants. This approach will quickly provide the maximum number of people with good protection, instead of a good number of people with maximum protection.”
As part of the national vaccination exercise, the Ministry of Health (MOH) will be working with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to progressively vaccinate over 400,000 students from schools and Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) from 1 June 2021.
All eligible students should receive their invitation to sign up for vaccination.
Mr Lee also urged seniors above the age of 60 to go for their vaccination.
“If you are above 60, you can now walk into any vaccination centre and get vaccinated on the spot. No need to register, no need to book in advance, just turn up at a vaccination centre, and you will be jabbed,” he said.
For elderly who are not mobile, they can contact the Silver Generation Office to have a medical professional visit their homes for the vaccination.
