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COVID-19: Visitors to be capped at 8 per household per day from 26 Jan – Lawrence Wong

SINGAPORE - JANUARY 10: People wearing protective masks shop on January 10, 2021 in Singapore. As of January 10, the Ministry of Health confirmed 42 new imported COVID-19 cases, with zero cases in the wider community bringing the country's total to 58,907. (Photo by Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images)
People wearing protective masks shop on 10 January 2021 in Singapore. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

SINGAPORE — The government will impose a cap of eight distinct visitors per household per day from 26 January, amid a rise in the number of COVID-19 community cases and emergence of new clusters in Singapore recently.

Making the announcement at a virtual news conference on Friday (22 January), Education Minister Lawrence Wong said enforcement officers will conduct random spot checks on households to ensure that the new measure is being adhered to.

“There are also possibilities where neighbours may call up. It has already happened before. We've received feedback from residents during the circuit breaker for example, or even during Phase One,” said Wong, who is also the COVID-19 multi-ministry taskforce (MTF) co-chair.

“We know it's not easy to enforce (the new measure), it may not be 100 per cent, because you can't have people everywhere in every home checking 100 per cent of the time.”

The cap on visitors per household is to further mitigate the risk of large community clusters arising from infections that spread within a household and through them to their contacts.

Individuals should also limit themselves to visiting at most two other households a day, as much as possible, said Wong.

Health Minister and taskforce co-chair Gan Kim Yong, who also spoke at the conference, expressed concern about “a certain degree of complacency” among the community cases and clusters in the past two weeks.

“About three-quarters of them were symptomatic yet half of them did not seek medical treatment after they had experienced symptoms and some continue to go to work and intermingle within the community,” Gan said.

The maximum group size for social gatherings outside the house will remain at eight people for now.

“That said, everyone should keep their social circle small instead of mixing with multiple social groups. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and impose further measures as necessary,” the MTF said in a statement.

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