COVID guidelines for larger settings such as dine-in on track: Lawrence Wong

SINGAPORE — The COVID-19 guidelines will be revised to allow for larger gatherings among vaccinated people while dine-in at five per group in food and beverage places is expected to proceed as planned next month, said Finance Minister Lawrence Wong on Thursday (24 June).

Speaking at a multi-ministry taskforce (MTF) on COVID-19 conference, the MTF co-chair said, “First, is the next stage of our reopening, specifically to move from two persons to five persons for higher risk settings like F&B dining-in. We had said earlier that we plan to do this sometime around mid-July. With the vaccine on track, with the regular testing of workers in these higher-risk settings proceeding, we should be able to get there.”

On the guidelines for vaccinated persons in social settings, Wong said that “we could allow gatherings involving just vaccinated persons to have larger group sizes, and also relax the social-distancing rules in such settings because only vaccinated persons are involved.”

The different settings would include religious services, concerts, sporting events, and others, he added.

Similarly, the authorities are working on new guidelines for vaccinated individuals in Singapore to be able to travel abroad.

“And then when you come back, you either can serve a shorter quarantine time and the stay-home-notice will be shorter, or may be waived entirely, and replaced with some tests, and this will depend on the country that you visit,” Wong said.

His comments come as the MTF announced that Singapore is aiming to fully vaccinate two-thirds of the population against COVID-19 by National Day and will accelerate its vaccination plan from this Saturday.

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