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Social gatherings in public areas and home visits will continue to be limited to two persons, despite the easing of restrictions in other areas, such as five people from the same household dining together at a restaurant or Food & Beverage (F&B) establishment.

This excludes hawker centres and coffee shops as they are unable to conduct comprehensive Vaccine Differentiated Safe Management Measure (VDS) checks on all diners.

Move to 5 pax limited to outlets that can do necessary checks

The Multi-Ministry Task Force (MTF) gave a press conference on Nov. 8, which announced the easing of some restrictions, but the limit for social gatherings and household visits remains unchanged.

In response to a question from Mothership, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said:

"Yes, they are limited to two persons. The move for five persons is limited to F&B restaurants, outlets that are able to do the necessary checks, as I said, so for all other social gatherings including house visits, the rule of two will still apply."

Earlier during the press conference, Wong elaborated on how F&B establishments check the status of their diners before letting them in.

The government will "strictly" enforce this by taking firm action against errant individuals and establishments that don't properly conduct checks.

Situation being monitored

As it stands, the restrictions are:

• Group sizes of up to two persons.
• Up to two unique household visitors a day.
• One social gathering per day, whether to another household or in a public place.
• The cap on visitors does not apply for grandchildren being cared for by grandparents.

Wong said that things depend on whether the overall situation remains stable, although he did not give a definitive timeline for any easing of social gathering restrictions. Wong said:

"When can we make this move to adjust further?

Well, as I've said, we are making one move now. We will monitor the situation over the coming weeks.

And based on all the indicators that we monitor, if the overall situation remains stable, we will consider what the next move might be."

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Photo by Ryan Cheng on Unsplash.