Community cases have increased a week after the end of Singapore's circuit breaker period but the situation remains under control, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong said yesterday.
The jump in cases is partly due to a stepped-up testing regime, and the new daily cases are within expectations, said Mr Wong, who co-chairs the multi-ministry task force tackling Covid-19 along with Health Minister Gan Kim Yong.
During a virtual news conference yesterday, Mr Gan added that with more cases expected in the coming days and weeks, it was important to mitigate the risks, with basic hygiene practices and precautions, and ring-fencing cases quickly with timely contact tracing so that large clusters do not form.
"Some worry that the cases in the community have risen quickly after the reopening. In fact, many of the community cases we have seen in the past week were due to active case finding as we proactively conduct surveillance to test on our target groups," he said, adding that these included residents of homes for seniors and pre-school staff.
Singapore ended its two-month circuit breaker period on June 1, and more activities and businesses started to resume the next day under phase one of the easing of cir-cuit breaker measures.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Health said that the number of new cases in the community increased to an average of eight per day in the past week, compared with four the week before.
Community transmission remains a concern, the Ministry of Health's director of medical services Kenneth Mak said yesterday.
"Just as we let more people come out of their homes, going to work, going about their business, it is still important to remember that we should limit travel outside our home and continue doing that only for necessary purposes."
Mr Wong also responded to suggestions on a possible inconsistency on safe distancing rules, where contact with commuters on public transport is deemed acceptable during phase one, yet more meetings between family members are not allowed.
He said he understood why such comparisons are being made, but that the settings and risks in the two cases are very different.
In phase one of Singapore's reopening, people are allowed to visit their parents or grandparents, who can receive only up to two visitors from the same household once a day. Other non-essential activities and social gatherings continue to be prohibited.
When more people use public transport as they go back to workplaces and schools, it will be difficult, and potentially impossible, to maintain safe distances, said Mr Wong. That is why other precautions have to be taken, such as the wearing of masks, requiring people not to talk on buses and trains, and stepping up cleaning regimes.
"In any case, the public transport journeys are not long. These are transient risks, but with these addi-tional precautions, we are able to minimise the risk further."
Mr Wong added: "But social interactions are of a different magnitude of risk altogether. When we gather together, whether to talk, to interact, to have a meal together, the risks are much higher."
He noted that evidence in Singapore and overseas shows that the vast majority of infected cases are typically spread by a few events that involve social interactions and gatherings. This explains the stricter limits on such social gatherings in phase one, he said.
He urged Singaporeans not to "exploit each and every rule to the fullest possible degree".
"We want to appeal to everyone... really to understand the spirit of the regulation and continue to uphold precautions, stay home wherever possible, minimise contacts to the largest extent possible," he said.
The authorities will continue to monitor the situation over the coming week and decide by the middle of the month whether to move to phase two, where more activities will be allowed to resume.
"If we all do our part to comply with the measures in phase one, we will be able to keep community transmission low and stable through this period, and it gives us a much better chance of getting into phase two early," he said.
