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People in Singapore may take a supervised antigen rapid test (ART) at quick test centres and have their HealthHub app reflect the positive Covid-19 record within 30 minutes.

This change in process will relieve general practitioner clinics of having to attend to mild Covid-19 patients for the purpose of recording their positive cases in the system.

Bookings for an appointment to get tested via ART will open by the end of Feb. 15, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said in Parliament on Tuesday, in response to Yio Chu Kang MP Yip Hon Weng, who asked how healthcare workers and the healthcare system are coping.

Go to QTCs at malls

ART kits will be available at quick test centres.

Ong added: "So that way I hope we can divert many of the very mild cases away from GP (general practitioner) clinics into the QTCs (quick test centres). We have about 200 QTCs now, all over, including in malls. We will start with about a quarter of them."

GPs overwhelmed

The change was instituted following feedback from GPs.

“Many patients that go to the GPs, and the GPs feedback to us, they either have mild or no symptoms, but they self-tested got themselves positive, decided 'I better see a GP',” he said.

“Many of them actually worry about travel, if they have to go through a PCR test," Ong said.

Due to this consideration, Ong said those who undergo testing "want to show that actually 'I had Covid-19 and I'm a shedder and I recovered’.”

Top photo via CapitaLand

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