All mosques here to remain closed until March 26

All mosques in Singapore will continue to remain closed until March 26, in a move to prevent the coronavirus from spreading any further in religious institutions in the country.

The extension of the closure of all 70 mosques was announced yesterday by the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (Muis).

This means that until Thursday next week, congregational prayers such as the five daily prayers as well as Friday prayers on March 20 will not be held at mosques.

They will, however, resume the call to prayers today and will produce more online content to continue guiding the community.

All the mosques were closed last Friday for cleaning after an infected group visited some of them.

When they reopen later this month, Muis said enhanced measures will be implemented to keep the virus at bay.

These include mandatory non-contact temperature-taking of congregants, turning away those who are unwell and requiring congregants to bring their own prayer mats.

At a press conference yesterday, Minister-in-Charge of Muslim Affairs Masagos Zulkifli said mosques here will also pilot a new system of holding two sessions, not one, for congregational Friday prayers.

This will start in four mosques: Maarof mosque in Jurong West, Mujahidin mosque in Queenstown, Muhajirin mosque in Bishan and An-Nur mosque in Woodlands.

"We want to practise this in four mosques first. As we learn how to operationalise this, we will do it in more mosques," he said.

Mr Masagos, who is also Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, said all prayers and other mosque activities will have to adhere to a 30-minute limit and congregants will be spaced out farther from one another.

Contact tracing will also be introduced in mosques which will keep a record of congregants who visit, he added. Muis is exploring technological solutions on how to do this.

Muis explained that the decision to extend the duration of the mosque closures came after more Singaporeans were infected with the virus after they attended a religious gathering with 16,000 people at a mosque on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

The council had earlier stated that communal activities like congregational prayers may expose congregants to transmission of the virus by individuals who may not know they are infected.

At least five Singaporeans who went for the mass gathering between Feb 27 and March 1 are confirmed cases, including one mosque employee, and they had visited 10 mosques while they were infectious.

Yesterday, Mr Masagos said 101 Singaporeans have hitherto been identified as having attended the gathering in Malaysia.

But even with the current measures in place, Muis said it is possible for more cases to emerge through secondary transmission.

Also, it is not possible to identify and trace everyone who visited the 10 mosques as they do not operate on a membership system and lack a register of congregants, said a Muis spokesman.

This means contact tracing will not be a sufficient measure to prevent onward transmission of the virus, the spokesman added.

Muis said that following consultation with the Ministry of Health (MOH), it is of the view that the risk of a large cluster forming, from among the participants of the large gathering in Malaysia, persists.

The extension of the closure of mosques until March 26 completes one incubation period of the coronavirus to break the cycle of transmission, Muis added.

Last Thursday, Muis had announced the initial five-day closure as a preventive measure against the spread of the virus.

Yesterday, Mr Masagos said members of the Muslim community here have been "quite overwhelming" in their support of the move to close the mosques.

"They understand... (and) know why we're doing this," he said.