The government will be closing more workplaces and tightening the list of essential services that are permitted to remain open during the circuit breaker period, including Food and Beverage outlets (F&B).

Additionally, they will also be reducing the number of people who are working in essential services across all sectors, especially for consumer facing businesses.

This was announced on April 21 in a press conference by the co-chair of the multi-taskforce ministry, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong.

People who work in essential services at high risk of contracting virus

According to Wong, the government is now ready to make this move after mentioning the measure last week.

He added that it was important as after analysing the local infected cases after the start of the Circuit Breaker, many of such cases were either working in essential services, or had family members who are working in essential services.

Wong said that their contributions were appreciated, but it was necessary to reduce to number of such workers.

As such, the government intends to reduce the number of essential workers from 20 per cent to 15 per cent across all sectors, including consumer facing businesses.

This will cut down on the number of people who will need to commute daily.

Some F&B outlets may close

Such cuts may mean a "degradation" of services.

For instance, some F&B outlets or other services may not be available during this time.

However, Wong said: "I hope everyone understands why we need to make this important move."

Wong added that there will be some tightening of F&B outlets that are currently open, and some may need to close.

The full list of such businesses and services affected will be published by the Ministry of Trade and Industry "very soon".

You can check the list at the following link: https://covid.gobusiness.gov.sg/essentialservices

Additional measures for workplaces that remain open

Workplaces that are allowed to remain open must implement the appropriate safety measures. These include:

• Not allowing teams working in different locations to interact physically with one another.
• Implementing safe distancing measures at every workplace premise.
• Ensuring workers wear masks at the workplaces.

All workplaces will also be required to have a system that logs their workers’ entry into, and exit from, their workplaces.

Employers can consider using a digital check-in application called SafeEntry for this purpose.

More information on SafeEntry’s deployment at work premises can be found at go.gov.sg/safeentry.

Related story:

Top image via CNA Live