Lawrence Wong appeals to employers to let employees work from home

SINGAPORE – National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said during one of the Covid-19 governmental task force press conferences held on Monday (June 15) that despite Singapore moving into Phase 2 of the circuit breaker on June 19, working from home (WFH) will still be “an important measure.”

As shared in a report by TODAY, Wong stressed that the safe distancing measures need to be taken seriously, asking employees to allow their employees to work from home when able, saying, “So we will still ask all employers to make… telecommuting a default setting.”

When questioned about social distancing on public transportation, Minister Wong admitted that it would be difficult to do so, which is why he iterated the importance of employers “maintaining the discipline” for those that can work from home. “Hopefully, that will reduce the number of commuters during peak periods,” he added.

The task force, that was co-chaired with Health Minster Gan Kim Yong, went on to say that while indoor dining in restaurants, tuition classes and exercising in gyms and sports facilities will also be allowed by Friday, there will still be restrictions in place.

Aside from maintaining social distancing of at least one meter between one person to another, a limit of five people in gatherings will also be enforced. Meanwhile, gym and sports facilities will also have limits as to how many people will be allowed in their venues as well.

The task force also went on to announce that rules on the number of people allowed inside retail stores and malls will also be ‘subject to capacity limits’ per individual location. Mr Wong also cited that stores need to adhere to strict distancing measures so that there won’t be any business disruption. He also shared, “The outcome then was that within many of the malls, there was enough distance and people didn’t feel like there was a lot of crowding at all.”

Mr Wong also maintained that mall operators are also required to have proper queueing at entrances to avoid having too many people waiting all together. Malls also shouldn’t rush to open, as this will be “counterproductive” and if they don’t follow, the authorities may have to force these malls to close once again.

Much of the same rules will be also applied to supermarkets as well. As reported by todayonline.com, a number of supermarket chains have been highlighted by the Ministry of Health as places where a number of coronavirus carriers have visited. Due to this, supermarkets will be required to do contract tracing via SafeEntry digital check-in system.

Lately, supermarkets from different chains have been listed by the Ministry of Health in their daily updates as places visited by people who were carrying the coronavirus.

Wong went on to say, “If there is any supermarket operator that’s unable to implement these measures well… we will ask them to rectify it immediately.” He added, “If they can’t rectify it, we will ask them to close.” /TISG