More healthcare workers, staff in nursing homes and other workers in essential services, in particular those working with vulnerable groups, are now getting tested for Covid-19.
The stepped-up tests for these workers, who also include front-line officers who have interacted with confirmed cases, come as the Government goes "all out" in expanding its testing capabilities, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong said yesterday.
"We want to do this, to ensure the well-being of our essential workforce and also to protect seniors and vulnerable members of the public," said Mr Wong, who co-chairs the multi-ministry task force fighting the Covid-19 outbreak.
"Each time we do these tests, it will help us to detect early and also to prevent any clusters from forming through this early detection... This aspect of testing is critical particularly as we plan for a phase beyond the circuit breaker."
Mr Wong said all countries are grappling with the challenge of moving out of their lockdowns and relaxing measures in a safe manner.
A scaled-up testing capacity will be a key enabler to Singapore lifting such measures and opening up its economy again, he added.
"That is why we are ramping up and scaling up our testing capacity; not just doing this with existing PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests, but also looking at new technologies that might be available including, potentially, point-of-care test kits that can be scaled up more rapidly," said Mr Wong.
The second key enabler to open up the economy would be the use of technology. "We can do more to identify, track people's movements, particularly if a case were to emerge, then we will be able to quickly move in to do contact tracing and ring-fencing of the close contacts," he added.
The Government is working on plans in these two areas and will announce more details when they are available.
But Mr Wong said that even as more essential workers get tested, they should still continue to take precautions. These include minimising contact with colleagues, not socialising during break times and not going to work if unwell.
"It is very important that we all continue to uphold these very basic precautions and safeguards, together with a ramped-up testing regime," he added.
"Testing cannot substitute for all of these... There is a chance that you can test negative but you are in the incubation phase, and so the test will not pick up the virus during that phase."
Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, who also co-chairs the task force, said Singapore will have to reduce the number of unlinked cases - whether among foreign workers or in the community - to as low as possible before easing the restrictions that are in place.
"While there may still be some risks, we will need to manage that risk and reduce that risk to the extent possible before we are able to begin to open up and to remove the circuit breaker measures," he said.
"It is important to understand that those unlinked cases mean that... there are underlying transmissions in the community that have not been detected because these cases have to come from someone, and that someone has not been identified."
He reiterated that any easing of circuit breaker measures will be done in phases to prevent the resurgence of cases.
In the meantime, Mr Wong called for patience in complying with the enhanced circuit breaker measures that will last until May 4. He noted that the impact of these measures, announced on April 21, will take up to two weeks to show.
"It is not easy, but we really call on everyone to hunker down during this final stretch, at least till May 4," he said.
"We have said that we are trying to get our local, our community cases down to a single digit. It is not there yet, and not just single digit in one day, but consistently over a period of time... When that happens, we will gradually start easing up on the measures and resuming more activities."
