SINGAPORE — From next Tuesday (April 26), food-and-beverage (F&B) establishments will no longer need to conduct Covid-19 vaccination checks on customers, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.

Instead, customers eating out will be the ones responsible for abiding by the rules. Random spot checks will continue to be conducted to ensure only fully vaccinated people are dining at these eateries. This is already the case at hawker centres and coffee shops.

Vaccine-related infection controls will be removed from next Tuesday for all settings except large events with more than 500 participants at a time, nightlife venues that have patrons dancing, and F&B establishments.

MOH said in a news release on Friday that the decision rode on Singapore’s vaccination coverage, which is at 96 per cent of the eligible population and is among the highest in the world.

“With cases and hospitalisations steadily declining, our hospitals and healthcare workers are adjusting to handle their higher clinical workload from non-Covid-19 patients. As such, we are now in a position to ease vaccination-differentiated safe management measures.”

As for places where such infection controls will not be lifted, MOH said that these are settings that pose higher risks of transmission due to factors such as large crowds and unmasked activities.

MOH also announced on Friday that it will stop issuing health-risk notices to close contacts of Covid-19 patients from Tuesday.

This means that people infected with Covid-19 will no longer need to submit details of household contacts online.

MOH stressed, however, that infected persons should continue to exercise social responsibility and inform their close contacts so that they may take the necessary precautions.

It referred to the precautions under the ministry's Protocol Three of the current health-risk notice, which requires close contacts to have a negative test for Covid-19 before leaving their homes.

Settings with vulnerable persons — such as hospitals, nursing homes and eldercare homes — should also request proof of a negative antigen rapid test result for people with recent exposure to an infection before allowing entry.

UNVACCINATED WORKERS

From Tuesday, unvaccinated employees may be allowed to return to the workplace so long as their employers allow them to do so.

For now, the infection controls allow only three groups of people to return to the workplace: Employees who are fully vaccinated, certified to be medically ineligible for a Covid-19 vaccine or have recovered from Covid-19 within the past 180 days.

Unvaccinated employees are not allowed to return, even with a negative Covid-19 test result.

These controls, which are under the purview of the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), will be lifted. 

MOH said: “Nevertheless, given that the pandemic is not over and there are still significant risks in the coming months, tripartite partners (employers, unions and the Government) have agreed that employers should have the flexibility to continue implementing vaccination-related instructions for employees for workplace health and safety and business continuity reasons, and in accordance with employment law.” 

MOM will give more details later.