After three years since Singapore’s disease outbreak response system peaked at DORSCON Orange, the Republic is finally bringing it down to DORSCON Green on Feb 13, 2023, and stepping down most measures like mask wearing on public transport and border controls.
This was announced by the Multi-Ministry Taskforce today (Feb 9).
Here are the key things that you can expect on Feb 13
- Mask-wearing on public transport and indoor healthcare and residential care settings will no longer be required under the temporary Covid-19 regulations.
- However the Ministry of Health will retain the practice of mask wearing for visitors, staff and patients in healthcare and residential care settings, where there is interaction with patients and in indoor patient-facing areas.
- Stepping down of the MTF.
- Standing down of Protocols 1-2-3.
- Stepping down of TraceTogether and SafeEntry.
- Stepping down of the remaining Covid-19 border measures. For example, all non-fully vaccinated travellers entering Singapore will no longer be required to show proof of a negative Pre-Departure Test.
A nation together
Three years — that’s a long time. Our fight with Covid-19 is not over, but reaching this stage is progress that we can be proud of together as a nation.
We have managed to achieve this by adopting a evidence-based approach, calibrating our response in a measured and cautious way to protect our citizens.
It is best encapsulated in what PM Lee said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Nov 2021: The PAP Government’s approach is all about reaching the end point without paying the high price which many other societies have paid, where people got infected before they got vaccinated.
And the results show it. Singapore has one of the lowest Covid-19 mortality rates and one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
This evidence-based approach has served us well, providing us with a logical and coherent set of principles while remaining flexible when circumstances change.
All of this would not have been possible without the hard work of frontline workers and the cooperation and trust that Singaporeans put in the PAP Government.
As Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said last year, the trust that we have built up between Singaporeans and the Government and in one another is “the fundamental reason why Singaporeans were able to come together during the pandemic, instead of working against each other”.
It is also because Singaporeans trust our healthcare system to be competent, committed to care, as well as open and honest with the public, even when things don’t go as intended.
At the end, we should be heartened that, if we can survive this crisis of a generation, there are few problems that we cannot overcome if we face them as one united nation.
Photos via: Kirill Petropavlov on Unsplash, NUS.