Gov Evaluating Phase 3 (HA) Reopening As There’s Now a New Outbreak

Many of us expected 21 June 2021 to be the date when we can finally dine out. For the more health-conscious fellows, they were looking forward to sweat it out in a gym again.

But unfortunately, this might have to wait.

Again.

Gov Evaluating Phase 3 (HA) Reopening As There’s Now a New Outbreak

Last week, it was announced that Singapore would be moving into Phase 3 (Heightened Alert) from 14 June 2021, but it will come in two stages: the first would start from 14 June 2021 and the second would be from 21 June 2021.

You can read more about the two stages here, but the key takeaway is that the first stage would allow more people to gather (from two to five), while the second stage would allow more places to re-open, like dine-in and gyms.

Suffice to say, most people are looking forward to the second stage since we’re all lonely fellows with no friends.

But unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’d know that since the announcement, the number of COVID-19 community cases rises as fast as our blood pressure whenever we see them.

Here’s a breakdown since 10 June 2021 (when the announcement was made):

10 June: 4 community cases with 2 unlinked cases

11 June: 3 community cases and all of them are unlinked

12 June: 12 community cases with 5 unlinked cases

13 June: 10 community cases with 2 unlinked cases

14 June: 18 community cases with 2 unlinked cases

15 June: 14 community cases with 5 unlinked cases

16 June (today): 19 community cases with 3 unlinked cases

Even a baby who doesn’t know maths would see an upward trend of cases since Lawrence Wong and gang told us what Phase 3 (Heightened Alert) means.

Other than these numbers, it hasn’t looked good in the community, too.

Three food centres are now in high alert: Telok Blangah Hawker Centre is closed for deep cleaning, all stallholders at Redhill Market and Food Centre would need to undergo mandatory COVID-19 tests and Bukit Merah Food Centre now has 25 cases linked to it. The food centre was supposed to reopen today but would now be closed until 26 June 2021 instead.

This afternoon, co-chair of the COVID-19 task force went to social media to test himself with a COVID-19 DIY test kit that is now available for purchase from pharmacies, and also updated us about the latest development.

He said that unfortunately, we had “a latest outbreak of cases and we are likely to be dealing now with a very large cluster in Bukit Merah, where the cases are breaking out not only in the market and the hawker centre, but also, all around the vicinity.”

Lest you’re not aware, those food centres mentioned earlier are all relatively near to each other.

Mr Wong added, “And day by day, we are seeing the number of unlinked cases, the cryptic cases, in the community are likely to be rising too. So with all these latest developments, we are evaluating the timeline and the scope of our second stage of opening.

“I know this is a difficult time for everyone. I want to assure all of you that we are doing our very best to control the infection, and we want to ensure that we do not have another flare-up before we reach sufficiently high levels of vaccination in our community.

“So, the Multi-Ministry Task Force is monitoring this very closely. We are making our assessments together with public health experts, and we will announce our decisions, very soon.”

Basically, the one-sentence summary is this: Cannot confirm if 21 June can makan outside or go gym lah due to more cases, so take your vaccine coz cannot afford another bigly cluster.

You can watch the video here:

Featured Image: YouTube (CNA)