Lawrence Wong: Phase 2 of post-circuit breaker could be early as end-June

Singapore could move into Phase 2 of its post-Circuit Breaker before the end of June if infection rates remain low and stable.

This was said by Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong during the Multi-Ministry Taskforce’s press conference on Thursday (28 May).

“If infection rates remain low and stable, then we will decide by middle of June whether or not we want to take the next step to Phase 2. This means Phase 2 could happen before end of June,” said Mr Wong who co-chairs the Taskforce with Health Minister Gan Kim Yong.

The taskforce announced last week that it decided to exit the Circuit Breaker when it ends on 1 June 2020 as the daily number of new community cases has declined significantly and the dormitory situation has stabilised.

About 75 per cent of the economy is said to resume operations in Phase 1.

Phase 2 will see more firms and businesses which Mr Wong puts it as “almost the entire economy”, starting with F&B dine-in and retail outlets, gyms and fitness studios, and tuition and enrichment centres, which will gradually be allowed to re-open. Schools will gradually have all students to return for face to face learning. Sports, recreation and outdoor facilities will also start to re-open.

However food outlets will be subjected to a maximum of five people for dining in and social-gathering. Within the home, households may receive up to five visitors per day.

“There is really no magic number … you can set two, you can set five, eight, ten. And if you look around the world, you will find different countries setting different numbers. We think that five is a reasonable balance looking at the assessment of risk and the assessment of the situation we are in today,” said Mr Wong.

“Five means that if an infection was to happen, then you limit that cluster to that group of five people who were together with that infection person at any one time.

“If you obviously allow 10 people, then potentially the cluster that can form will be larger,” Mr Wong added.

“If you set it on the other hand, very tightly. two people – then that will be a little bit too tight at the start and it will be very conservative… potentially a lot of families will not even be able to gather together.”

Mr Wong pointed out that already in Phase 1,  places of worships are allowed to carry out private sessions where people can pray in groups of five who are within the same household.

As for activities that involve large groups of people gathering in enclosed spaces like libraries, museums, bars, clubs, discos and movie theatres, the Government will “take a more cautious approach” on when such activities can resume.

The authorities will begin discussions with businesses in this category to ensure that they have the safeguards in place that are needed in order for them to resume their operations.

They may not all reopen at the beginning of Phase 2 but if they have all the safeguards that are needed in place, they could still resume their activities later “but still within Phase 2”, said Mr Wong.