Singapore is set to enter Phase Three of its post-COVID circuit breaker reopening on 28 December, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Delivering a televised address on Monday (14 December), Mr Lee said that restrictions on gatherings will be eased from up to five persons at a time to up to eight people at a time in the new phase.
The prime minister said that the change to the maximum number of people who could gather at a time “will make it easier to hold family get-togethers during the festive period”.
Capacity limits for malls and places of worship will also be relaxed, he added.
Borders to inevitably be reopened to avoid S’pore “permanently losing out as an international hub”; a “calculated risk we have to accept”: PM Lee
While he acknowledged that many countries globally are facing “second, third, or even fourth waves of infection” which have prompted international borders to “remain largely closed”, Mr Lee said that “trade and travel” are Singapore’s “lifeblood”.
“The longer our borders stay closed to travellers, the greater the risk of us permanently losing out as an international hub, consequently hurting our livelihoods,” he stressed.
Thus, Singapore’s “only option is to reopen our borders in a controlled and safe way,” said Mr Lee.
Noting that Singapore “will see more imported cases, and there will be some risk of these cases spreading to the community”, Mr Lee said that such is “a calculated risk we have to accept”.
“But the government will take every precaution, and do our best to prevent imported cases from triggering a new outbreak,” he said.
