Singapore to Stop In-School Classes to Stem Virus Spread

(Bloomberg) --

Singapore plans to close most in-school classes this week and move to home-based learning, as a spike in unlinked cases poses the biggest challenge since last year to the city’s efforts to tackle the pandemic.

All primary, secondary, junior college and Millennia Institute students will shift to full home-based learning from May 19 till the end of the school term on May 28, the Ministry of Education said in a statement on Sunday. Preschools and student care centers remain open to support parents who have to work.

“Some of these mutations are much more virulent and they seem to attack the younger children,” Chan Chun Sing, the new education minister said at a briefing. “We have to significantly reduce our movement and interactions in the coming days.”

The country reported 38 new cases of Covid-19 infection in the community on Sunday, the health ministry said, the highest number in more than a year. These include 18 cases that are currently unlinked, which is the most concerning to officials as they signal undetected spread in the community.

Schools will remain open to students who need more support, while all center-based tuition and enrichment classes should move activities online till the end of the so-called heightened alert period that is slated to last to June 13, according to the statement. This is to cut the intermingling of students from different schools. At least 10 children tested positive for coronavirus in the past week.

The Southeast Asian nation Sunday returned to a month of the lockdown-like conditions it last imposed a year ago. The government banned dining-in and limited gatherings to two people because of a rise in the number of untraceable virus infections. Singapore had been one of the world’s success stories in containing Covid.

Singapore Moves Back Toward Lockdown as Virus Cases Rise

Vaccination for Children

Singapore plans to vaccinate children under 16 years old after a recent rise of Covid-19 infections among students in the island state, Chan said earlier.

The ministries of education and health are working out plans for the “vaccination of our students,” Chan wrote on his Facebook page. “Once the approval for use is granted, we will roll out vaccinations to those below 16.”

U.S. health regulators have approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children aged 12 to 15, opening the way for other nations to inoculate younger people. The Pfizer-BioNTech is among the vaccines approved by the Singaporean government.

During the briefing, new health minister Ong Ye Kung also said the government is studying holding off the second vaccine shots in order to give more people at least one dose of inoculation.

“There have been many international studies and it shows that even with one dose, it confers good protection without compromising efficacy,” Ong said. “Our scientists have been studying this.”

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In a post on her Facebook page on Sunday, Ho Ching, the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, encouraged the elderly to get vaccinated, even as she cited a scarcity in the shots.

“Yes, our vaccine deliveries are slow this month and possibly next 1-2 months,” said Ho, who is also the chief executive officer of Singapore’s state-owned investor Temasek Holdings Pte. until October.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.