SINGAPORE - It is Friday (April 3) morning at Kallang Estate Market - a morning that seems like any other - except boxes marked in red can be seen on the floor all around the market.
The queue boxes, which are being drawn up in all 83 wet markets operated by the National Environment Agency (NEA) and its appointed operators, serve to keep patrons at least a metre apart from one another. They are the latest safe distancing measures rolled out by the NEA as part of efforts to stem community spread of the coronavirus in Singapore.
As of Friday evening, queue boxes have been marked at 40 wet markets islandwide.
In a statement on Thursday, NEA urged the public to do their marketing during off-peak periods, such as weekdays, or early in the mornings on weekends. The elderly have also been advised to stay at home and to have someone do the shopping on their behalf.
When The Straits Times visited the Kallang Estate Market, dozens of shoppers - many of them elderly - were seen milling around the stalls.
The exterior of the market is visibly more spacious and most shoppers here kept a distance from one another while queueing.
However, along the handful of narrow lanes between stalls within the market, people rubbed shoulders with one another frequently, and there was barely any semblance of a queue in place, especially at what appeared to be more popular stalls. Hardly anyone stood inside the box when making their purchases.
Mrs Jolene Teng, 50, who runs a fish stall at the market together with her husband, Mr Stephen Teng, said in Mandarin that she had urged patrons to keep a distance, but her advice fell on deaf ears.
"Everyone wants to get their hands on the best produce. If all of them want to rush to get the fish they want, there's no way to stop or control them."
She added that the placement of the queue box at a corner of her stall also "did not make sense".
"If my customers are to stand within the box, what about the fish on the other side - how are they going to reach it?"
Mr Teng, 60, added: "Our stall is also unlike the stalls on the exterior, where there is enough space for the queues to extend outwards. We're located in the interior. Keeping a 1m distance between the customers is impossible.
"You can't just impose the same measures on every stall."
Other stallholders echoed the couple's concerns.
Fruit stall owner Yeow Seng Chuan, 56, said: "How do you expect the customers to patiently wait their turn to choose the fruits? They'll be afraid that the good ones are already taken by others."
He added that there is no use adding more queue boxes because there is limited space around individual stalls as well. "The measures might be good for a hawker centre but it's hard to implement them at wet markets."
Housewife Chua Ee Sin, 60, approved of the measures, however.
She said: "The boxes are good because they give you a clearer guideline as to where to stand or queue, compared to lines."
But maintaining a distance of 1m was difficult, she added.
"For eggs, there's no problem - we can wait in line because the seller can pick them for us. But when I buy vegetables, I like to select different varieties. So I don't know how you can do that with the boxes because we have to keep moving around."
A patron, who wished to be identified only as Madam Lim, also felt the measures were "impractical" as there was not enough space along the lanes.
Said the 70-year-old housewife: "The Government suggested that we shop during the off-peak periods. But if you do that, all the better items would have been bought by others.
"And if you come very early in the morning on weekends, some of the stalls are not even open yet."
On Thursday, NEA said that it would start a trial at Serangoon Garden Market on Saturday to study how crowds can be managed in a market setting. The entry and exit points of the market will be monitored to avoid overcrowding within the market.
"NEA will evaluate the effectiveness of this trial and monitor feedback before deciding if this trial would be extended to other markets," said the agency.
