COVID-19 safe management measures streamlined to focus on key public health actions

We thank Ms Janis Soo for her feedback (It may be too early to streamline COVID-19 measures, Feb 19).

Our safe management measures have accumulated over the past two years and have become complex, with specific rules for different settings. This makes it harder for people to remember and to follow the measures.

Over the last two years of the pandemic, we have also gained some experience about the nature of the infection, and the effectiveness of various measures.

The streamlining therefore seeks to distil the measures to the most important and effective ones, including group sizes for social gatherings, mask-wearing, and safe distancing.

This will help everyone to better remember and understand the need for these measures, and do their part in complying with them.

We share Ms Soo's concerns about the capacity of our healthcare system. We will continue to do our utmost to support our healthcare staff, who have been fighting the virus for more than two years.

The most meaningful way for all of us to show our support is to self-recover at home if we are infected and our symptoms are mild, and for employers not to require medical certificates for absenteeism due to COVID-19 infections.

Tan Wei Ming
Senior Director, Special Projects,
Ministry of Health