Risk Level for Children Aged 12 and Under Given Shift Back to Phase Two

14 Ms He Ting Ru asked Minister for Education (a) given the shift back to Phase Two (Heightened Alert), what is the assessed risk level for children under the age of 12 who are unable to be vaccinated; and (b) what are the considerations when deciding the further steps that need to be taken, particularly in indoor educational settings, to ensure the safety of these children and their families, whether now or in the future when moving into COVID-19 as an endemic disease.

The Minister for Education (Mr Chan Chun Sing): Mdm Deputy Speaker, unvaccinated persons, generally, are at higher risk of COVID-19 infection compared to vaccinated persons of the same age groups. For children, international experience and data on COVID-19 infections have thus far shown that the disease outcome is much less severe as compared to older adults and the elderly. In Singapore, we have so far observed mild disease in local cases aged under 12 years, even with the Delta variant. We are also fortunate thus far that for our children under 12 years who have been infected, none of them has required ICU care nor oxygen supplementation.

To keep our children safe in the school environment, we implement stringent safe management and surveillance measures, and have adjusted the conduct of school activities where necessary. All staff in schools and preschools are required to wear masks. Students in school are also required to wear masks, while in preschools, either masks or face shields are strongly encouraged for children above the age of two. For mask-off activities in schools, extra safe management measures are taken. For example, physical education classes are conducted outdoors or in well-ventilated venues and in small groups based on national guidelines. Mask-off activities are currently suspended in preschools. Preschools and schools also emphasise good personal hygiene and social responsibility. Staff in preschools and schools are also prioritised for vaccination. These measures collectively mitigate the risks of infection in our students.

The Expert Committee on COVID-19 Vaccination or EC19V as we call it, is monitoring on-going vaccination trials for children under the age of 12. The EC19V will assess if it is suitable to administer these vaccines to children under the age of 12 and make recommendations to MOH at the appropriate time.

Ultimately, managing COVID-19, whether nationally or in our school setting, is about managing risks and balancing trade-offs. Over time, we have developed a better understanding of the virus and how to live with it in our daily lives. As we move towards a new normal of COVID-19 as an endemic disease, we are making a conscious move to adopt an appropriate risk management strategy and collectively determine what level of risk is acceptable to us as a society.

The past few months have given us more confidence that we can strike a better balance by taking a more targeted approach to ring-fence cases and their close contacts. For example, by only having affected classes, levels or schools on Home-Based Learning (HBL), rather than resorting to full HBL for everyone on a nationwide scale. This has allowed us to isolate affected students and staff, and not close all Primary schools, where most students are not yet eligible for vaccination.

The alternative of full HBL on a prolonged basis comes at the cost of the learning and especially the social-emotional development of our young. And it takes a toll on the mental wellness, places additional stresses on educators, parents and students, especially when not all students have home environments that are conducive for HBL. The negative impact also falls disproportionally on lower-income families.

We will continue to finetune how we manage school cases and ensure its sustainability as we transit towards living with COVID-19 as an endemic disease. Taking reference from the national posture and working closely with parents, we will continue to work hard to keep our schools and students safe.

Mdm Deputy Speaker: Ms He Ting Ru.

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): I thank the Minister for his response. The reason I asked this question is because a lot of parents have come to me and said they are worried about the health and safety of their children, especially those under the age of 12, who are unable to get vaccinated at the moment. I just wanted to ask what efforts are being made to address these concerns, as in efforts to address these parents directly? Because, obviously, a lot of them are very worried, a lot of them are writing to me and writing to all of us here. They want to know how about those parents, for example, with children who have pre-existing medical conditions that make these children more vulnerable, if they do actually get COVID-19. Are these children expected to isolate or stay at home? What are the actual effects this will actually have on these children? These are some of the questions that parents have come up to me with and I would just like some clarifications from the Minister about this.

Earlier, the Minister also said that the task force is studying the safety of vaccinations on children under the age of 12. Do we have any estimates of when we expect to see results because the Minister mentioned that more announcements and decisions will be made at the appropriate time? Do we have an estimate of when this is expected to be available?

Lastly, I just wanted to ask, especially at the preschools and maybe even infant care levels, as many parents with young children will know, it is actually very difficult for these children to keep their masks on and adhere to hygiene and safe distancing measures. What sort of extra steps and precautions are taken to make sure that these children and by definition, their family members, especially vulnerable family members at home are also protected?

Mr Chan Chun Sing: Mdm Deputy Speaker, there are three questions. Let me deal with the second one first and that is, when can we expect EC19V to make an announcement. That very much will depend on the work that they are doing and also from the work that the manufacturers of the vaccines are doing now, worldwide. So, at this point in time, I am unable to give a timeline as to when this work will be completed. But as far as we know, the work has started to trial this, to see if it is appropriate for children below the age of 12.

Let me deal with the first question. Like Ms He Ting Ru, I think all of us, as parents, are, of course, concerned with the safety of our children under the age of 12 who are unable to be vaccinated yet. And we also know that we are unlikely to have a vaccine for those under 12 years old, anytime soon. Having said that, what we need to do is to make sure that we put in place the safe management measures for our children to live their life as normally as possible so that they can continue to grow up and continue learning as much as possible. We need to do this in a sustainable way; and I want to emphasise this: "sustainable way". We do not know how long this disease will continue to ravage the world. We do not know when the vaccine will come. Bearing this in mind, we need sustainable solutions in order to allow our children, especially those below the age of 12, to continue learning and growing in as normal an environment as possible.

As I have mentioned in my speech, what are some of the things that we can do? One, we want to make sure that we observe all the safe management measures that we can practise: personal hygiene, cohorting of the classes to minimise the chances of our younger children getting it.

And I think, to this extent, the adults also have a role to play, which is why we encourage everyone to try to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

Having said that, it does not mean that those people who are vaccinated are no longer going to transmit or be carriers of the virus. But what it does mean is that the chances are reduced and the symptoms are much less. That is also one way to keep our younger children safe.

Beyond that preventive step, we are looking at the next step which we have also done: to make sure that we organise our activities in such a way that can allow our children to interact, learn in a group, but not having too many of them mixing around and just in case anything happens, which means that we have tight cohorting in the schools, preschools, to minimise the chances of this happening.

The next ring that we must implement is that upon the detection of any of the cases, quickly ring-fence the affected parties so that we can minimise the chances of this spreading to the rest. This is where parents can also play a part to work with the schools and the preschools to keep our children safe. If, for whatever reasons, a member of the family is ill, please do not send the children to school until we have verified that the children or the family will not pose a risk to the other students in the school. So, I think, collectively, we can also do that.

Going forward, if and when the day comes whereby we have other testing capabilities that are less intrusive, that we can conduct on a mass scale, that will give us yet another tool for us to see how we can safely have more activities by testing more people more regularly, including perhaps the younger ones. But at this point in time, we do not yet have that less intrusive testing capability for the younger ones. So, we have to continue to work together to make sure that we keep our children and our schools safe.

But coming back to that, I would like to appeal to everyone that we need to make this work on a sustainable basis. And that is why we need to work together. We can do certain things in the short term, we can scale up certain measures but the question is how do we make such measures sustainable, bearing in mind the interests of the children, the families and also the educators, which was what I had explained to the public last Friday.

The last question Ms He Ting Ru asked about was infant care and the preschool. Indeed, we all understand it is harder for the children of the younger ages to keep their masks on and it will take extra effort for us to make sure that we apply the safe management measures, keeping their personal hygiene good and, at the same time, cohorting them to minimise the chances of transmission, in case something should happen, in case one of them should be infected with this.

Having said that, it is very important for everyone again to work together so that a child who is sick or a child who is from a family who has someone ill and not verified yet, to avoid sending the child to the school or the preschool so that we minimise the chances of this spreading to other people. And we would need everybody's cooperation to make this happen.