SINGAPORE, May 14 — Amid a spike in Covid-19 community cases with unknown links, group sizes will be reduced to two persons and dining in will be banned from Sunday (May 16) to June 13 as Singapore’s authorities scramble to contain the spread of coronavirus.

The Government’s Covid-19 task force announced on Friday that people will be allowed to gather in groups of up to two — down from the current five. The daily cap of five distinct visitors per household will also be cut to two distinct visitors a day.

To allow families’ childcare arrangements to continue, grandchildren being cared for by their grandparents will not count towards the visitor cap or the number of daily social gatherings.

The Ministry of Health (MoH), however, said: "Individuals should continue to limit their overall number of social gatherings to not more than two per day, whether to another household or meeting with friends and family members in a public place.”

Meanwhile, no one will be allowed to dine in at food-and-beverage (F&B) establishments, including hawker centres and coffee shops.

These are higher-risk settings as maskless customers often linger for prolonged periods near one another, said MoH.

To curb community transmission, dine-in eateries, both indoor and outdoor, can offer only takeaways and deliveries.

MoH added that the recent coronavirus clusters have shown "higher attack rates” and that secondary transmission happens in households, eateries and settings where people do not wear masks.

Other activities that will not be allowed during this period include strenuous indoor exercise classes or vigorous individual and group indoor sports and exercise activities.

The following activities that require masks to be removed will also be banned: 

― Facials and saunas 

― Singing

― The playing of instruments requiring intentional expulsion of air, such as wind or brass instruments

Medical and dental services will continue.

Work-from-home remains default

Meanwhile, homeworking will remain the default at workplaces.

Employers must ensure that employees who can work from home do so.

MoH added: "There should continue to be no cross-deployment of workers to multiple worksites. Employers should continue to stagger start times of employees who need to return to the workplace and implement flexible working hours.”

Social gatherings at workplaces will also be banned.

Employees may have meal breaks at their workplaces, but they should refrain from mingling with their colleagues when they remove their masks.

MoH said that these measures would lower transmission risks by reducing footfall and interactions at common spaces at or near workplaces and in public places, including on public transport.

The ministry said that the latest measures to curb community transmission were in response to the "persisting” pattern of community cases with no known links.

The number of cases in the community with unknown origins has risen to 15 this past week from seven cases in the week before, MoH said in an update on the coronavirus situation on Thursday night.

MoH added today that this was "worrying as it suggests that there may be unknown cases in the community with possible ongoing community transmission and that our earlier measures to break the chains of transmissions may be insufficient.

"We need to act decisively to contain these risks as any one leak could result in an uncontrolled resurgence of cases.” 

Education Minister Lawrence Wong, co-chair of the task force, said that the Government would review the measures in two weeks and "will not rule out” tightening them. But if things improve, the authorities "may also consider (going) the other way”. 

Measures to help F&B firms, hawkers

With dining-in banned at F&B places, the government will increase support under the Jobs Support Scheme, which helps firms retain workers, to 50 per cent of the first S$4,600 of gross monthly wages paid to Singapore employees between Sunday and June 13.

This is up from 10 per cent for wages paid until June.

To support hawkers and stallholders at coffee shops, who are self-employed and do not benefit from the Jobs Support Scheme, the government will offer one month of rental waivers for hawker stall and coffee shop tenants of government agencies.

The government also urged commercial landlords to help their F&B tenants tide over this period. ― TODAY