Measures to Ease Singapore into Further Reopening after COVID-19 Circuit Breaker

2 Ms Jessica Tan Soon Neo asked the Minister for Health with the low number of community cases for COVID-19, what can be expected on further easing of measures for Singapore and when can this be done.

3 Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis asked the Minister for Health whether the Government has completed its review of work-from-home arrangements and where does Singapore stand in the Government's risk assessment in determining when to move into Phase 3 of Singapore's reopening.

The Minister for Health (Mr Gan Kim Yong): Mr Speaker, may I take Question Nos 2 and 3 together?

Mr Speaker: Yes, please.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Thank you. Sir, when Singapore exited the circuit breaker period in June 2020, the Multi-Ministry Task Force or MTF set out a Three-phase Plan to resume economic and social activities. Since then, we have progressed from Phase One to Phase Two.

We have learned important lessons from other countries in easing precautionary measures for COVID-19. For example, when restrictions are lifted prematurely, or too hastily, a resurgence of cases may occur, resulting in the need to partially reimpose these restrictions. On the other hand, it is not sustainable to maintain tight restrictions for a prolonged period which will severely impact not only our economy, but also our lives. Therefore, we have taken a carefully calibrated approach in opening up our society and economy as we work towards Phase Three. This is complemented by close monitoring, extensive testing and comprehensive contact tracing to keep the situation under control, as we balance the protection of lives and livelihoods.

We have made significant moves towards restoring economic and social activities. From 28 September 2020, we allowed more employees who have been working from home to return to their workplaces, which Mr Louis Chua had asked about. However, we need to continue to keep our workplaces safe and minimise crowding. Therefore, such employees should still continue to work from home for at least half their working time and there should be no more than 50% of such employees at the workplace at any point in time. Work-related events, including conferences, seminars and meetings, have also been allowed to resume, albeit within a 50-person cap for these activities to reduce the risk of transmission. Other safe management measures should continue to be observed at workplaces.

We have also taken steps to support the resumption of a few very targeted and specific areas. We recognise the importance of key life events such as weddings and the importance of religious activities and worship to our spiritual needs. Therefore, we have allowed greater numbers of up to 100 persons to attend each of these events, in multiple zones or time slots of at most 50 persons each to limit potential risk exposure. Earlier, we had also allowed the resumption of physical exercise classes in common community spaces, and allowed an increase in capacity for cinemas and leisure attractions such as the Zoo and Bird Park. Museums and libraries have also reopened. We are piloting live performances to prepare us to eventually be able to resume such activities safely.

Ms Jessica Tan has asked what can be expected on further easing of measures going forward and when this can be done; and I understand Ms Foo Mee Har¹ would like to know whether the social and dining group size limit of five persons will be reviewed. All these are very important questions that we ask ourselves constantly.

Sir, if all of us continue to work together and keep our guard up even as more activities resume, we will be able to keep the pandemic under control and progress towards further opening up our economy and society steadily. For instance, we could allow for general group sizes larger than five, so that larger families or groups of friends could meet and have meals together. We are particularly concerned about dining as we need to remove our masks so as to eat and drink, but we tend to also talk at the same time. The risk is considerably higher than activities which we can keep our masks on and maintain a safe distance.

We have begun pilots of events and activities with a larger number of attendees, such as trade exhibitions, conferences and religious worship to assess whether we can maintain effective precautions and safe distancing measures. If these pilots are successful, we will be able to use the lessons learnt to allow more large-scale events to proceed. We will also continue to facilitate further opening up for overseas travel in a safe and calibrated manner, which Minister Ong Ye Kung will talk about later in greater detail later.

The low number of community cases currently is not accidental but has come about due to our collective hard work and sacrifices. Even as we move towards Phase Three, the new normal will be different from what we were used to in the pre-COVID days. The MTF is working on a road map towards Phase Three and we will share more details when we are ready in the coming weeks.

As overseas travel restrictions are progressively eased and more activities resume, it has become even more critical that each of us plays our part to exercise social responsibility and adhere to the safe management measures, in order to keep our family and friends safe as we progress towards Phase Three.

Mr Speaker: Mr Louis Ng.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): Thank you, Sir. I thank the Minister for the response. I note that we are now at about 50% of our work-from-home policy, but I think Minister Lawrence Wong originally said that we should embrace working from home even after the circuit breaker ends. So, can I just check whether the Government still stands by that statement?

Second, I think working from home has allowed more fathers to play an active role in child care-giving duties. I am just wondering whether the Government has studies or will be studying whether our work-from-home policies can contribute towards levelling the child care-giving duties at home and hence, tackling this gender stereotype?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: I thank the Member. Let me answer the first question. Working from home will continue to be default, but we do accept and acknowledge that there are challenges both from the employers as well as from the employees' perspective. Some employees' homes may not be conducive for working from home. Therefore, we made some arrangements and provided flexibility to allow the employers and the employees to work out better, more flexible arrangements, but subject to the criteria that I have just mentioned – no more than 50% of all employees who are working from home today, can go back to the office; and for those who are working from home today, not more than half of their time should be spent in the workplace; and they should still continue to work from home if they can.

It is a flexible arrangement; we want to provide some flexibility for the workers and the employers. We also recognise that some employers do need to consult their employees, they still need to have face-to-face interactions and meetings. This is also part of the process of team bonding and is critical among the employees. We cannot totally do away with the face-to-face, physical meetings and interactions amongst employees and employers. So, we provide some flexibility but we still encourage employers and employees to work out the arrangements and to allow employees to stay at home, work from home, as much as possible. This will help to reduce overcrowding in the workplaces and at the same time, also reduce the congestion on the roads and on public transport. These are important.

As I had mentioned in my reply, even after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, whenever that happens, we will continue to encourage this flexible working arrangement. Through this period of COVID-19, we have found that working from home has a lot of advantages, like Mr Louis Ng has mentioned. You can spend more time with your family and fathers can also play a bigger role in the family setting. But this is a separate issue on family matters, which is probably more appropriate for the Member to file a separate Parliamentary Question (PQ) addressed to MSF, rather than for MOH to respond specifically.

But generally, we will continue to encourage working from home and we will continue to provide flexibility to allow flexible work arrangements between the employer and the employees.

Mr Speaker: A reminder to Members to keep the supplementary questions relevant to the PQs, please. Mr Louis Chua.

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis (Sengkang): I thank the Minister for the detailed explanation. Specific to the roadmap that Minister had mentioned that he would be sharing over the next couple weeks, may I ask, firstly, if there will be additional parameters or guidance given to businesses and individuals such that they will be able to make their planning in advance? For example, earlier, we allowed up to 50% of the employees to work from the office, but I think that was only given five days in advance of the 28 September date.

The other matter is in relation to my question on the Government's risk assessment. One specific measure would be relating to the DORSCON status. I note that we have been in DORSCON Orange since 7 February earlier this year, and remain in DORSCON Orange today, even though the number of cases has gone from about more than 1,000 a day, to right now, less than 10. Is that something which the Government will review in order to provide us with a more handy reference guide in terms of where we stand in the risk assessment?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: I thank the Member. This is a very important question. So, I thank him for the opportunity to explain and elaborate. For employment practices, we are working very closely with MOM and MTI to engage the various stakeholders. Because different sectors will have different challenges and we are working through these challenges with them. You would have noticed that for some of the announcements, the notice period is very short, basically because there is really no need to meet any deadline. For example, when you allow workers to go back to work – you can start on Monday, you can start next week, you can start next month. It is not a requirement that you must get them to go back to work and therefore, there is really no need for a lead time to prepare. You can take as long as you need to prepare yourselves, to discuss with your employees how to introduce this flexible arrangement. So, it is an on-going process.

In fact, many of the measures, you would notice, we do not accumulate them into a big package and then announce them at once, so that there are many changes at one go. We work with the sector leads to discuss how to help them, how to solve some of the challenges. As and when these issues are addressed and solved, we move ahead. Some of them may not even require a specific public announcement because it may be very sector-specific and so we would just discuss with the sector. When we come to some common understanding to make sure that safe management measures can be put in place, and we proceed with it.

So, these are differentiated approaches that we have adopted.

With regard to the DORSCON level, we have to always bear in mind that, as I have mentioned before, DORSCON level is not just determined by the number of cases alone. At this moment, particularly, we have to be very mindful that while the number of cases in Singapore is low, the cases around us, in other parts of the world, are still rising. Therefore, we cannot let our guards down. I will continue to maintain DORSCON Orange for the time being until we are quite confident that the global situation is under control.

As I had mentioned in my reply, we will be opening up our borders. We will need to continue to encourage more travels because Singapore is a hub city. So, we need to ensure that our travel hub and business hub status do not get undermined. I should not go into too much detail on this because Minister Ong Ye Kung is all ready to speak on this. I will leave it to him to elaborate. Suffice to say that until the world is safe, we will not be safe. Therefore, we have to continue to maintain the DORSCON level and to keep our guards up, so that we can continue to keep the number of cases low, especially in the community.