Covid-19: Singapore to lower DORSCON level to level yellow from Tuesday (April 26)

Visitors at Clarke Quay in Singapore, on Saturday, April 23, 2022. Singapore downgraded the crisis level of the pandemic, scrapping all tests for incoming vaccinated visitors and limits on gathering sizes as it takes further steps to live with Covid-19. - Bloomberg

SINGAPORE, April 24 (Bernama): Singapore will adjust the level of its Disease Outbreak Response System Condition or DORSCON to Yellow from Orange from April 26, 2022, given the improving local Covid-19 situation, according to the republic’s Multi Ministry Taskforce (MTF) on Covid-19.

"We had raised our DORSCON level to Orange in February 2020 due to a rise in unlinked local cases at that time and we expected significant disruption to daily routine, given our focus on isolation to contain transmission,” said the MTF’s co-chair Gan Kim Yong at a virtual press conference recently.

Gan, who is also the republic’s Trade and Industry Minister, said today the situation has changed "even though the virus is more prevalent, most infections remained mild, as a result of our high vaccination coverage.”

"Our simplified health care protocols, and SMM (Safe Management Measures) are expected to cause minimal disruptions to our lives. Therefore, the time is right for us to step down our DORSCON level to yellow,” he said.

DORSCON framework gives indication of the current disease situation.

The MTF said the daily case numbers and Covid-19 hospitalisations had declined steadily in the past week with the seven-day moving average of daily local case numbers falling from around 18,300 at its peak to under 3,100 in the past week.

The number of hospitalisations has fallen from 1,726 at its peak to 266 while Covid-19 related Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients are now in single digits.

"The incidence of severe illness has also remained low,” it said.

Among others, MTF today announced that it will step down on the use of TraceTogether (TT) (akin to MySejahtera) and SafeEntry (SE) from April 26, 2022.

Most venues will also no longer require the public to check in using the TT application or token, except larger events with more than 500 participants at any one time and certain nightlife establishments, where Vaccination-Differentiated SMMs (VDS) checks are still required at entry.

MTF noted that the TT and SE capabilities will be maintained as a means of conducting these VDS checks, and to enable it to rapidly step up contact tracing and VDS checks should it needs to do so again in response to a new Variant of Concern.

"The public is therefore strongly encouraged to keep the TT application on their phones as well as their TT tokens,” MTF advised. - Bernama