SINGAPORE, Aug 10 — The Ministry of Health (MoH) has spelt out the criteria for people to be allowed to dine in at food-and-beverage (F&B) outlets from today (August 10), pointing out that hard copies of vaccination certificates obtained overseas will not be accepted.
The clarification, which was issued after midnight today, came as new rules kick in on the same day allowing eateries to take in groups of up to five diners, provided they are fully vaccinated.
MoH reiterated that the following groups will also be allowed to dine-in at these establishments, even if they are not fully vaccinated:
― People who have recovered from Covid-19 and have a valid pre-event testing exemption notice
― People who have a negative pre-event test result for the duration of his or her meal from an MoH-approved Covid-19 test provider within the last 24 hours
― Children aged 12 and below, so long as all children at a given table are from the same household
“Enforcement officers will be doing their checks, and will take strict enforcement actions against any F&B establishments and individuals who do not comply with these rules,” MoH said in a statement.
Those who are unvaccinated or do not meet the above criteria can only dine in groups of up to two people at coffee shops and hawker centres.
A person will be considered fully vaccinated two weeks after he or she has received both doses of the Moderna or the Pfizer-BioNTech or Comirnaty vaccines, as well as other vaccines recognised in the World Health Organisation’s Emergency Use Listing, including those made by Sinovac and Sinopharm.
Verifying vaccine status
All Singapore residents who got their Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shots here will have their vaccination record updated automatically in the National Immunisation Registry.
This status will also be reflected on the TraceTogether and HealthHub mobile applications from today, which can be shown to employees at the dining places as proof of vaccination.
Businesses using the SafeEntry (Business) app will be able to obtain this information when customers check in, MoH said.
From today, residents who have received their Sinovac jabs here will also be able to access their vaccination record on HealthHub. The TraceTogether and SafeEntry (Business) apps will be updated in future to display Sinovac records, MoH added.
F&B operators are not allowed to accept hard copies of overseas vaccination certificates for those who had been inoculated abroad.
“This is because it will be difficult for individual establishments to verify the authenticity of these certificates, which are issued in different formats and languages,” MoH said.
Instead, Singaporeans, permanent residents and long-term pass holders who have been vaccinated overseas will have to provide documents showing proof of vaccination at an approved provider.
This is regardless of the brand of Covid-19 vaccine received.
They will also have to take a serology test to confirm that the vaccination has been effective.
Only when they get a positive serology result will their vaccination record be updated in the national registry and have their status reflected on the TraceTogether and HealthHub apps.
More details on the process, including the list of the approved providers, may be found on MoH’s Post Vaccination Matters webpage.
“We will have a separate process for short-term visitor pass holders who were vaccinated overseas to update their vaccination status on the National Immunisation Registry,” MoH added. “This is still being worked out and details will be released soon.” ― TODAY
