THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED ON JULY 20, 2021, AND UPDATED ON JULY 26, 2021.

Singapore received some good news today when the co-chair of the Covid-19 multi-ministry task force, Lawrence Wong, announced in a ministerial statement given in Parliament that they would be reviewing some of the Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) restrictions in early August. In fact, these restrictions may be eased for the vaccinated. 

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This is due to the fact that vaccinated individuals are “much better protected” against the virus, said Mr Wong. People hoping to dine out or go to gyms will need to be fully vaccinated when the time comes. 

The Government is currently anticipating that around 80 per cent of the population would have received both Covid-19 vaccine doses by early September. They are also looking into allowing concessions on safe management measures to those who have taken the Sinovac vaccine "when the evidence justifies it", said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung in Parliament on July 26.

This news comes days after Singapore entered Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) on July 22 as a result of a spike in community Covid-19 cases that was largely attributed to the KTV and Jurong Fishery Port clusters.

The Government announced that they would be suspending dining-in and reducing group sizes for social gatherings to two to curb the spread from July 22 till August 18.

In addition to the reduction of group sizes, there was also a cap of two distinct visitors per household per day and people were advised to limit their social gatherings to no more than two a day. 

All food and beverage establishments also had to pivot to offer only takeaway and delivery options from July 22.

While the task force admitted last week that it was a very difficult decision to move the country to Phase 2 (Heightened Alert), they said it was a necessary one. 

“Based on the assessment of the way the cases have developed, the many clusters that we are seeing, and how it's likely to have transmitted through into the community, we've decided that we have to put in place something to slow down the transmission,” said Mr Wong back on July 20. 

In today's announcement, Mr Wong said Singapore needed to scale back activities in order to help slow down transmission and give the country time to push vaccination rates up further.

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