Those who have taken both doses of their Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccine can look forward to doing more in life by the end of this month.
The Health Ministry announced today that fully vaccinated Singaporeans may soon take part in more social activities, provided that at least half of the population complete their vaccinations by the end of July. According to the ministry, restrictions for vaccinated individuals will be further relaxed to allow larger gatherings and events.
“As Singapore’s vaccination coverage continues to increase, we will introduce differentiated [safe management measures] for vaccinated persons. This will allow individuals who have been fully vaccinated under the national vaccination programme to participate in more community and economic activities,” the ministry said in a statement. “When more people are vaccinated, it reduces the risk of spread from an infected person to another, in particular a non-vaccinated person who is more vulnerable to the disease.”
Social gatherings could be expanded to groups of eight instead of five, and up to 500 people may be able to gather for events.
The statement did not indicate whether the same privileges may be extended to individuals who have gotten Sinovac jabs, which have yet to be approved by local health authorities and were only distributed via private healthcare. More than 17,000 people had paid for the first dose of the China-made vaccine, including some who were photographed camping out.
Separately, the Health Ministry also loosened social gathering restrictions effective next week. Singaporeans can dine out in groups of five instead of pairs, host up to 250 people at wedding receptions with pre-event testing, and up to 5 people for each fitness class. Work-from-home will remain the default working arrangement for everyone but social gatherings of employees will be allowed, limited to groups of five.
As of Monday, about a third of Singapore’s population of 5.8 million people have been fully inoculated. Singapore returned to recording single-digit cases of locally transmitted infections in the past week. In total, the city-state has reported 62,640 cases and 36 deaths.
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