Health Minister Ong Ye Kung has urged those in Singapore to "keep it up" as their efforts at containing and reducing Covid-19 infections are paying off after three weeks of more stringent restrictions.

Ong wrote on Facebook on June 6 to update those here that Singapore is heading in the right direction in his view.

This is so as the proportion of unlinked cases has fallen from 22 per cent of the overall numbers to 15 per cent since the start of Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) on May 16.

Three set of important numbers to take note of

Ong said in his post that Singapore's daily infection figures can be broken down to three sets of numbers.

These three categories are

- quarantined before detection, 

- not quarantined but linked to clusters,

- and unlinked.

At the May 31 press conference convened by the multy-ministry task force handling the pandemic, Ong had called the unlinked cases as the most worrying among the three categories.

But the Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) measures, in place since May 16 till June 13, have kept unlinked cases in check.

Ong wrote in his post: "We are heading in the right direction because of the contribution of everyone."

"Overall infection numbers over the last 7 days have dropped further from the past week."

"More encouraging is that the unlinked cases have fallen from 18 per cent to 15 per cent."

"Let’s keep it up."

Covid-19 detected in quarantine a good thing

Another positive development: The percentage of infected people who were detected while under quarantine has gone up from 57 per cent to 73 per cent, he said.

"This means very little chance for them to move around and spread to others," he said.

Background on May 31 press conference

Ong said during a multi-ministry task force press conference on May 31 that the Health Ministry has been monitoring data since the new measures kicked in on May 16, and has seen a drop in unlinked cases.

“Unlinked cases means they are quietly transmitting the virus in the community,” he said then, adding that the fewer there are, the better.

“The more we can shift this number away to linked cases or better still, linked and quarantined cases, the lesser will be the spread of the disease, and the more we can bring the overall number down and suppress this wave of transmission,” Ong said three weeks ago.

He also noted that an “encouraging sign” of how Singapore is handling the latest transmission of infections is that close to 70 per cent of all linked new cases each day are due to household transmissions, he said at the press conference.

“They are not due to dramatic movements or like parties or whatever, but usually the movement patterns are quite mundane -- home, work, food, grocery shopping, and so on,” he added.

“All in all, we are nudging in the right direction, but just nudging and controlling the situation. We are constantly improving our contact tracing and quarantine protocols,” he said.

However, co-chair of the multi-ministry task force Lawrence Wong said at the same press conference that even if all goes to plan, there may be a chance for some easing of measures after June 13, but it is "very unlikely" that Singapore will go "all the way back" to Phase 3.