Gan Kim Yong
Singapore
“Consumer complaints relating to the secondary resale market for tickets to major events and concerts have generally remained low. Nonetheless, to protect the public from scams on secondary ticket resale platforms, the Police have imposed Code of Practice requirements under the Online Criminal Harms Act to require designated online service…”
“Singapore does not condone the use of forced labour. We criminalise forced labour in Singapore under various laws. Relevant Government Ministries and agencies, such as the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Home Affairs and Singapore Police Force, play their part in investigating complaints of suspected breaches in domestic laws that relat…”
“The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) discontinued the PayNow nickname feature as scammers had been exploiting the use of nicknames to impersonate legitimate entities and trusted individuals.”
“As of end-2025, around 6,900 private residential buildings have registered their solar installations with SP Group for the export of excess solar-generated electricity to the grid. The installed solar capacity of these residential buildings is 115.3 megawatt-peak (MWp), or around 5.5% of all current installed solar capacity in Singapore.”
“The one-year pilot extension of liquor trading hours has seen strong interest from businesses. As of 31 May 2026, the Police have approved 88 applications for the extension of liquor trading hours from public entertainment outlets in these areas.”
“The Government does not make projections of domestic or regional demand for renewable diesel or sustainable aviation fuel. Demand depends on commercial considerations, evolving market conditions and regulatory developments across different jurisdictions.”
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“But in cases like the Safra outbreak, for example, you would expect the reproductive number to be significantly higher during that period of time. If you look at the current infection in the dormitories, the reproductive numbers in the domitories are also likely to be higher. So, therefore, you need to look at the number quite carefully. It means different things in different contexts. Therefore, I would prefer not to produce one single number and try to peg our metrics on that number. I think we need to take into account all the factors in order for us to be able to restore some of the activities safely.”
“Mr Speaker, I want to thank Ms Sylvia Lim for the question on the reproductive number. We are, indeed, tracking the number very closely. But as I have said, the numbers are important, but they are not everything. In fact, the reproductive number will be affected by the safe distancing and the circuit breaker measures that we have put in place. The stricter the measures we put in place, in fact, we are suppressing the reproductive number. So, the risk, of course, is that once you remove the circuit breaker measures, the reproductive number may go up again because this basically measures how many persons you are likely to infect for a particular infected person. So, if you have very tight safe distancing and circuit breaker measures, even if you are infected, you do not have a chance to interact with other people and, therefore, you are not likely to infect more people. But once you remove these circuit breaker measures, you have more interaction and the risk of you transmitting the infection to other people will go up and, therefore, the reproductive number will go up. It is something that we watch and monitor. Of course, if you still have very high reproductive numbers, it is very difficult for you to liberalise your circuit breaker measures because it will just go up even further. But even if you have very low reproductive numbers, you have to be very careful in opening up because, as you open up, the reproductive number may go up as well. So, it is something that we monitor and watch very carefully. At the moment, I think the reproductive number in the community is significantly lower. It is also reflected in the total number of cases that you see.”
“But the key priority is to make sure that all infected patients, all ill patients are taken care of. There are also patients who report sick which are not related to COVID-19 and not related to infection, and we continue to take care of them and to treat them where necessary and appropriate. And there are cases where they need hospital attention which are not related to COVID-19, we also will have to send them to hospital for medical attention. So, the key is to ensure that each worker in the dormitory is taken care of. When they have medical needs, we must respond to their medical requirements to make sure that they are taken care of and, at the same time, do what we can to minimise fatalities among our COVID-19 patients.”
“Thank you for the questions. For the foreign workers in the dormitories, whenever they have symptoms, we assess them and the key priority is to make sure that all the workers in the dormitories receive appropriate medical care to make sure that they are taken care of, their illnesses are treated and, if they are at risk of serious or deteriorating conditions, particularly for the older workers, we take them out. Whether or not they are COVID-19, we will take them out so that we pay particular attention in attending to their medical needs. Most of these workers who are older or who have more serious conditions, will be sent to hospitals and when they arrive in hospitals, they will be tested and they will be given appropriate treatment based on their test outcomes. But for the foreign workers who remain in the dormitories, the priority is to make sure that their well-being is taken care of, provide them with the medical attention without having to wait for the test results. And within the dormitories, there are isolation facilities. Where possible, we put them in the isolation facilities where some of them may be cohorted together because they all have similar illnesses. For the different dormitories, we align them in terms of our strategy or approach. This is coordinated again by the inter-agency task force that is managing the dormitories and they have a comprehensive framework of how to manage each dormitory. Each dormitory is different. It varies. There are some bigger ones and there are some smaller ones, and there are dormitories which have a higher level of infection and there dormitories which have relatively low level of infection. The approach would have to be quite different, depending on the nature of the infection within these dormitories.”
“But from here to testing, to eventually being approved for use by the population, I think there is still some way off. I think we cannot count on the vaccine to solve our immediate challenges of infection cases in the community. We need to do what we need to do. But we hope that the vaccine will come soonest possible and we are involved in some of the collaborative research work internationally. So, we are tapped into the progress and we hope that the vaccines will come out soon. But I think it will still take some time. It is better for us to now focus on the immediate tasks that we need to address.”
“But we also have to bear in mind that we have to assess whether it is productive and going to be effective because the number of cases that would turn positive from the ARIs may be quite low and, therefore, you may end up testing a lot, but not being able to pick up a very meaningful number of cases. But having said that, we do have, as I have mentioned earlier, a surveillance system where we sample ARI patients and those with flu-like symptoms to have a sense of what is the prevalence level in the population, in the community, to assess whether there is widespread community transmission. As I have mentioned earlier, it does not seem to be so at this moment. But we will continue to monitor. But to be effective in case finding, we may need to be quite targeted in our testing strategy. So, we are planning to expand it to cover all PARI and, hopefully, we are able to ramp up somewhat for the ARI cases in a more targeted way. For the confirmed cases and those who are in quarantine, whether we will test all of them, so far, our testing for the persons under quarantine is on a very selective basis. As I have mentioned in my speech as well, we do a risk assessment for those who have very close contacts and including the children who are not able to explain whether they feel ill or not. So, those we will quite aggressively test them to make sure that they are not infected. And for the rest of those quarantined, it will also depend on the risk assessment. And as we have more capacity, we hope to be able to test more of them to minimise the risk of transmission. Mr Pereira also asked about vaccines. It is still very early days. I think there are a lot of news media reports about the progress made. In fact, there is progress made.”
“Thank you. First, let me talk about sewage testing. In fact, we are doing trials to see whether we can pick up fragments of the virus from the sewage to allow us to have an assessment whether a particular vicinity, whether it is a dormitory, nursing home or hospital – in a hospital, probably you find a lot, because there are a lot of patients there who are infected with the COVID-19 – or housing estates if they have outbreaks. But there are challenges because sewage, by nature, would have been significantly diluted because it is a collection of quite a large population. So, we will need to test the sensitivity and see whether we are able to pick up sufficient fragments to be able to determine whether there is significant infection in the particular target areas. It is something that we are studying but it has its inherent challenges and we may not be able to deploy it for all kinds of settings. But in the high concentration settings, that may be possible. But, then, if there is a high concentration of infected cases, you probably would have detected these cases in any case. So, it is something that we are continuing to study and see whether we could deploy them in a meaningful way. Testing capacity, yes, we are ramping up and we are hoping to, first, test all prolonged ARI cases, those with prolonged acute respiratory symptoms so that we are able to detect more cases. We are also looking at whether we can expand beyond just PARI to see whether we can enhance or increase the number of tests that we do on the ARIs, that is, those with acute respiratory illnesses.”
“I actually mentioned that in my statement. Maybe I have not been that explicit. The support that we provide goes beyond just medical professionals, but also the support staff. And much of this support includes counselling sessions, supervisors talking to them as well as ways for them to seek help, including support groups within the work spaces. All these are part and parcel of the mental health support that we are giving to our healthcare workers, both on the professional side as well as the support staff. So, we do for all staff who are on the frontline.”
“Thank you. Indeed, it is important for Singaporeans to understand that if you have a serious medical condition, do go and see a doctor or do call the ambulance so that they can send you to an emergency department to be attended to. I think it is important for us to encourage Singaporeans to seek medical attention whenever necessary. From the hospitals' point of view, even though we have deferred some of the more stable patients' appointments, we do continue to keep in touch with them, including through teleconsult, to make sure that they remain all right and stable. For these patients, we are keeping a close watch and if it is necessary, the hospital will call them back for treatment and for surgery, if necessary. We need to continue to monitor these patients. We want to encourage Singaporeans to continue to seek medical care when the situation arises, when they need to do so. So far, we have not seen signs of patients who are staying away despite having a heart attack or stroke. We will continue to educate them on the signs of critical illness and when they ought to seek medical attention.”
“Mr Speaker, this is a very interesting and important question. Indeed, we do find many patients in our CCFs as well as in our hospitals and in our isolation centres who continue to test positive. The theory is that many of these tests may be picking up fragments of the virus and some of these viruses may no longer be viable. But nonetheless, the test will be able to pick them up. The test is not able to determine conclusively whether these are fragments or viable viruses, but when the scientists try to culture this virus, they find it very difficult to culture them after a certain number of days – usually after 14 days. After 21 days, it is even more difficult to culture these viruses. So, in effect, many of the scientists have come to the conclusion that probably, the RNA that has been detected are fragments of the virus and they are no longer viable. So far, we have been keeping them in the Community Care Facilities (CCFs). The Member is right that to keep them in the CCF is also not very good for them because they are not able to move around freely. We are exploring with our infectious disease experts to see what else can we do beyond just testing them. For some of them, you may still test positive after months because they just continue to have these fragments which may not be viable anymore. So, we may need to think about what we can do to help them so that they can be discharged, go home and go back to normal life if they are no longer infectious. So, I think these are some things that we are looking and discussing with the infectious disease experts' community to see how we can come to some way to helping these patients so that they can be discharged and go home.”
“The inter-agency task force looking after these dormitory operations is very mindful of the mental health needs, is paying attention to this and is working with the medical team on the ground with strong support from the various Regional Healthcare Systems to provide mental health services to those workers who may need them.”
“Allow me to address the issue on mental health and then I will leave the other two Ministers to address the other two questions. Indeed, mental health is a part of a very important consideration in our healthcare system and particularly on the ground, with regard to dealing with our foreign workers who are in the dormitories. Our medical teams on the ground are linked back to the various Regional Healthcare Systems. Within these Regional Healthcare Systems, they have support from the entire healthcare system, including mental health as well as other healthcare services. They have a full range of services available to them and they will assess the situation on the ground and decide in what form the mental health support is needed. They will also be dealing with the individual cases, assessing each individual patient. Even those who are non-patients, those who are not infected with COVID-19, could also have mental health issues and we are quite mindful of their mental health needs. The medical team on the ground is paying attention to the mental health conditions of the workers in the dormitories, as well as those outside the dormitories, where these medical teams are involved in. Beyond the medical teams, we also have a FAST team, as Minister Josephine Teo highlighted. Within this team, they are also very mindful of paying attention to the well-being of the foreign workers in the dormitories. These include not just their meals, their hygiene and their daily activities, but also their mental well-being.”
“Mr Speaker, on remdesivir, Singapore is part of the consortium of multi-centre clinical trials for remdesivir. As part of the trial, we get certain allocation of this drug for testing and treatment of our patients. We are also concurrently discussing with pharmaceutical companies to see whether we are able to have access to additional allocation over and above what is allocated for the trial. So, the discussion and negotiation are on-going.”
“Sir, on the PPE, we are monitoring this very closely. Currently, we have sufficient supplies, but we should not take this for granted. We should always try to preserve our PPE because this is going to be a long fight and whatever stockpile that we have, we will continue to need to require the supply chain to be preserved so that we are able to continue to import more of the equipment. And it is not just the PPE. We also need medication. We continue to need masks and so on. So, I think we will have to continue to remain vigilant to conserve our supplies and the key strategy is really to keep the number of cases low. Once we have a lower number of cases, then we will consume less of our medical supplies.”
“How do we get to 40,000? There are several constraints. One is the availability of test kits. We will need to look at how we can source for more test kits, both manufacturing locally as well as through procuring internationally to allow us to have more capacity to do testing. At the same time, we are also looking at materials because each test will also require materials for the testing, such as the reagents that will be needed for the extraction of the RNA materials. It is not enough to just ensure that we have the test kit, but we also need to have the RNA extracted and therefore, we have to make sure that we have sufficient supplies of these materials. And thirdly, there are manpower requirements because we can do the swabs but having swabbed the individuals, we still need to process the swabs, document them, test them and have the results properly recorded. This requires laboratory capacity. So, there are infrastructure and manpower requirements at every stage of the test. We are progressively raising the capacity and we hope to reach 40,000 as soon as possible. I would not be able to promise you when but we are doing our best to ramp it up. Today, we are able to do about 8,000 per day and we hope that in a short period of time, we will be able to reach 40,000 soon. At the same time, we also have to be mindful that, in fact, there is a global shortage of some of these test kits and the reagents. And therefore, we have to ensure that we have a continued supply and stock of these materials to allow us to continue and sustain this high level of testing.”
“Sir, I mentioned earlier that we have tested a total of 21,000 foreign workers sometime last week. By now, the number would have grown to close to 30,000 foreign workers. Do we have a plan to test all foreign workers? Currently, we do not plan to test all foreign workers. Our testing is still very targeted for specific purposes. We do testing on dormitories generally to establish the baseline level of infection in each dormitory so that we are able to strategise how we respond to the dormitories. And we also do baseline testing of workers in general to have a sense of where we are in terms of the infection rates. But for those who are infected in selected dormitories, we also do aggressive testing in order to allow us to identify infected workers so that we can isolate them and to protect those who are not infected. So, these are strategies that we have put in place for the management of a dormitory and the testing will be aligned with the strategy in managing these dormitories. At the same time, we are also looking at testing more of the essential workers that are going to continue to work in the community. These would include the foreign workers as well as Singaporean workers. For the foreign workers who are continuing to work in the essential industries, we will have to test them, not just once but repeatedly because they would continue to be exposed in the community and at the workplaces. Therefore, there may be a need to repeat the test on them. These essential workers, the number will grow as we begin to restore more of the business activities. And therefore, it is important for us to do so in a safe way. Testing, as I mentioned, is an important part of the strategy to ensure the safe opening and the safe restoration of some of the business activities.”
“And if we are able to continue to keep the infection numbers low and are able to put in place additional precautionary measures, we will progressively open many of these services and facilities.”
“Mr Speaker, I would like to thank Er Dr Lee Bee Wah for her questions, very important questions. But before I answer her questions, can I just make a correction. I mentioned in my earlier statement that we have 28 patients in ICU currently and the number is wrong. We currently have 22 patients in our ICU. That is just for the record. For the Traditional Chinese Medicine, we have always allowed some operation of the Traditional Chinese Medicine clinics to attend to chronic diseases and to attend to urgent cases. But we have further relaxed some of these rules to allow acupuncture and to also allow medicine halls, which have resident Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners there, to allow the medicine hall to be open and able to sell retail products, particularly the Traditional Chinese Medicine products in these shops, for the convenience of residents in general. As I mentioned in my Statement, we are beginning to allow some of the business activities to resume and for life to begin to return to normal, but we need to do so in a very careful way, in a very calibrated way, step by step, while in the meantime putting in precautionary measures. So, the overriding priority is still to encourage Singaporeans to stay at home as much as possible, go out only when necessary. And similarly even for business activities, including TCM practices, we would also want to make sure that we open it in a safe way to minimise the risk of further transmission and further infection. Particularly in medical practices, including TCM practices, there is a lot of close personal contact and interactions. So, we want to be particularly careful with this, and therefore, the answer is not totally "no", but we need to watch very carefully.”
“Our efforts on all these fronts continue even as we battle the COVID-19 outbreak, to keep Singaporeans healthy. Mr Speaker, let me conclude. In this fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone can play a role, during and after the circuit breaker period. We acknowledge that the circuit breaker measures are difficult, and we appreciate everyone's support and sacrifice to stay home and adhere to the measures. For our frontline officers, including those in healthcare, and dorm operations, we stand behind you, and want to express our enormous gratitude for your efforts. Our collective efforts are not in vain, and we have seen a decrease in our community numbers. We are looking ahead, and making preparations for post 1 June. We must make calibrated moves to prevent a resurgence of cases and clusters. We must put in place key enablers and safeguards to allow us to contain the spread and care for future cases, even as we roll back our circuit breaker measures and re-open. We must remain vigilant and not let our guards down. If we all do our part, we can overcome and emerge stronger. Let us work together and move forward together, as one SG United. [Applause.]”
“I am glad that Prof Lim Sun Sun asked about this, and let me share what we have been doing in this area. We have temporarily deferred launching any new initiatives to allow staff to be re-deployed to more critical areas of COVID-19 work. But for selected programmes, such as measures on Sugar Sweetened Beverages, banning Partially-hydrogenated Oils, and standardised packaging for tobacco products, we will continue to push ahead. To support our safe distancing measures, we have already suspended all on-ground activities such as general health screening, but we will continue to encourage Singapore residents to practice healthy habits and fight diabetes through less resource-intensive alternative platforms. For example, HPB continues to provide on HealthHub, bite-sized videos and articles on practising good personal hygiene, healthy eating, physical activity, and mental well-being. We must also never let our guard down on dengue. The total number of dengue cases in 2020 has exceeded 6,000 – more than double that over the same period in 2019. With the traditional dengue peak season approaching, NEA officers are on the ground conducting dengue inspections at common areas and construction sites, where construction site operators continue to be responsible for vector control measures, even during the circuit breaker period. A worrying trend that NEA observed was a 50% increase in Aedes mosquito breeding in homes over the past three years, compared to the preceding three years. Minister Masagos has asked me to urge everyone at home to be vigilant, to do the Mozzie Wipeout to remove potential mosquito breeding habitats. NEA also brought forward the National Dengue Prevention campaign to 22 March to rally all members of the community.”
“MOH has also looked to external sources to augment our public healthcare workforce. This includes tapping on healthcare professionals in the private sector and encouraging retired and non-practicing staff to return to public practice through the newly launched SG Healthcare Corps. We have expanded the scope to include those without prior healthcare experience, for whom training will be provided to enable them to take on supporting roles, such as performing swab procedures and basic care roles. As of 3 May, we received more than 11,000 sign-ups altogether. I am heartened by this overwhelming response from Singaporeans. So far, we have matched about 800 Corps members to various needs on the ground, and they are being progressively deployed and we will do more. Members of the SG Healthcare Corps will be remunerated for their time and contribution when they are deployed to work alongside our healthcare workers on the ground. Third, we also use technology as a force multiplier, to deliver the same or enhanced outcomes, with less time and resources. For example, in the CCFs, round-the-clock care is made possible through the use of medical kiosks and teleconsultations. Devices such as pulse oximeters and health apps are also used to monitor patient well-being. Healthcare institutions have also started teleconsultation services for follow-ups on their patients. Through all these initiatives, we aim to ensure that our public healthcare services remain available to those in need, and our healthcare workers are well taken care of during this challenging period. This enables us to have a sustainable healthcare workforce in this long-term fight. Even as we fight COVID-19, we need to continue to address long-term health issues.”
“We recognise the invaluable contributions of our workers and will ensure that they receive due recognition for stepping up during this challenging period. The Deputy Prime Minister had previously announced a special bonus for our public healthcare workers working on the frontline. Healthcare workers are also paid shift or overtime allowances if they take on longer or more shifts during this outbreak. However, we recognise that no monetary compensation is ever enough. I want to again acknowledge and thank our healthcare workers for their hard work and dedication. One great example is Ms Tovelle Loh, an assistant nurse clinician from NCID. Ms Loh supports training of staff to ensure that they are updated on infection control policies and recommendations and also helps to review infection control workflows at NCID and other settings. Despite the heavy work load, she remains spirited and committed to do the best for her patients. And it helps that her husband has been very supportive. Examples like Ms Loh abound, among our frontline workers, support staff and also researchers in our testing and research labs. Another key part of our strategy is to augment the healthcare workforce, which Mr Murali Pillai had asked about. While our public healthcare sector currently has sufficient healthcare professionals, they are stretched, and there is a need to rotate and refresh staff periodically, as the fight against COVID-19 is likely to be a long one. To address these sustainability concerns, MOH has given the public healthcare institutions some flexibility to deploy staff across institutions to meet pressing operational needs on the ground and to support one another as one public healthcare system, with strict infection control protocols in place.”
“Nevertheless, we cannot be complacent. We have reminded our healthcare workers constantly that they should take adequate precautions during their work to protect themselves, the patients as well as their family members. In the event that our healthcare workers fall sick, we will ensure that they are well taken care of and our healthcare institutions will provide them with the necessary support. It is also important for us to take care of the mental well-being of our healthcare workers. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare clusters had measures in place, such as counselling clinics, helplines and peer support programmes. We have since stepped up our efforts. For example, our institutions have rostered breaks and staff rotations to ensure that healthcare workers have sufficient rest periods in between work days. The clusters have also been actively working with the NTUC and, in particular, the Healthcare Services Employees' Union (HSEU) with initiatives such as the distribution of care packages, the launch of GrabCare to provide transport for our frontline workers and collaboration with MindFi, a mindfulness app. The many gifts and words of encouragement from members of the public to our healthcare workers mean a lot to them and have helped to keep up their morale. Members of the public have been writing thank you messages and buying breakfast for our healthcare workers. As part of the SG United initiative, close to 9,000 messages for our healthcare workers were collected from appreciation zones across Singapore. On behalf of our healthcare workers, let me thank you for your continued support. Compensation is another important area, which Miss Cheryl Chan asked about.”
“We will also explore how we can tap on SafeEntry and TraceTogether as well as other technological solutions. Even as we build our capability and capacity for testing, contact tracing and healthcare infrastructure, we need the support of our healthcare workers. They are at the centre of our fight against this COVID-19 outbreak. We deeply appreciate their sacrifices, long hours as well as personal and professional commitment to care for each patient. This will be a long campaign and we will need the support of our healthcare workers, and we need to support them and to take care of their needs. Many Members of Parliament have asked about the well-being of our healthcare workers. I would like to reaffirm our commitment to take care of them in every way. Our key priority is in keeping them safe and healthy by ensuring adequate supply of personal protective equipment to protect our healthcare workers and provide them training on the proper usage. I thank Dr Chia Shi-Lu for his concern on the infection rate among our healthcare workers. As of 26 April 2020, there were 66 cases of confirmed COVID-19 infections among healthcare workers. Forty six cases were from healthcare workers whose work involved direct contact with patients. Based on investigations thus far, there are no established epidemiological links of a healthcare worker being infected in the line of duty for caring for their patients, except for one case in a private healthcare institution where we are unable to rule out the possible link between the doctor and a COVID-19 patient. Our healthcare workers have taken an extra level of care at their workplace to protect themselves and their families. The recent NCID study also did not detect any past infection among a sample of healthcare workers.”
“For example, we currently test asymptomatic young children if they are in the same household as COVID-19 patients since they may not be able to articulate their symptoms well. In addition, a key priority is to protect vulnerable groups. This includes seniors, particularly nursing home residents. As mentioned, we have started to test staff and residents at MOH and MSF Homes with a high proportion of seniors such as nursing homes and welfare homes. Such tests complement existing precautionary measures, such as good infection control practices and close monitoring for symptoms in staff and residents. They will allow us to intervene early where needed to protect the elderly residents. As more businesses reopen, we may also do more tests for essential service workers. At our borders, we can also deploy tests for arrivals to reduce the risk of local transmission from imported cases. In all, as we build up our testing capacity, we will be able to test more and for more purposes. This will be important as we start to open up so that we can pre-emptively detect and break any potential transmission chains. The second enabler is our contact tracing capacity. After we have confirmed a COVID-19 case, we will need to contact trace and isolate high-risk close contacts to limit the spread in the community. This needs to be done fast and has to be scalable and thorough for it to be effective. This will allow us to quickly ringfence and prevent further spread. We have set up 50 contact tracing teams, up from 20 since my last update in March. But we must scale up quickly if there are more cases or large clusters and to discover less obvious links. To do so manually will be very difficult. Many countries have leveraged on technology to help them contact trace effectively and efficiently.”
“Many such tests in the market are also still under review and validation. Notwithstanding this, NCID has begun to use serology testing to study the level of infection among various groups, including healthcare workers, close contacts of COVID-19 patients and the general population. Their study was published last week and found that among close to 2,000 samples from our healthcare workers, volunteers and general population, none had antibodies pointing to a past infection. This shows that the infection rate among our healthcare workers and general population is low. The study also showed that among close contacts, around 2.5% had antibodies despite not having had symptoms during their quarantine. That means they had been infected earlier but recovered, and remain well without any symptoms. This points to the need to continue our efforts to quickly isolate close contacts of confirmed cases. We will continue to do more of these studies to help us understand the extent of spread and immunity in the community. I should add that scientific evidence of protective immunity is still under intensive study currently. There have been some suggestions to do asymptomatic testing for the entire population. We will study this. As there is no widespread community transmission here, the yield will be very low if asymptomatic testing is done indiscriminately for the whole population. To be effective, it may also need to be done repeatedly as it does not reflect immunity and those tested can be infected after the test. It might not be best way to use our testing resources. Instead, we will and have started doing asymptomatic testing selectively for priority groups.”
“To the question by Ms Sylvia Lim, we use PCR testing for three key purposes: (a) to diagnose suspect cases to provide early treatment and isolate close contacts; (b) to do screening and active case finding of individuals at risk, such as migrant workers decanted from their dorms before they return to work; and (c) to do surveillance to monitor undetected cases in the community. Currently, we have the capacity to conduct more than 8,000 PCR tests a day in total across our community and migrant workers in the dormitories, up from 2,900 a day in early April. We are working with various private and public sector partners to progressively increase our testing capacity further to up to 40,000 a day. With this increase, we will widen the net that we cast for diagnostic testing for symptomatic cases, active case finding, screening and surveillance testing in our community and among workers, including migrant workers. We will also do more testing and monitoring to pick out asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic cases among priority groups such as nursing home residents and staff to prevent clusters from developing. Testing is crucial as risk of infection will increase when we allow more economic and social activities to resume. Ms Sylvia Lim and Ms Foo Mee Har had asked about another type of test called serology testing. This works by detecting antibodies produced by the body to fight against the virus from a blood sample. Based on our local studies, the effectiveness of such tests is very low in the first 10 days of illness as it takes time for the immune system to develop antibodies. Therefore, unlike the PCR testing, serology tests are useful to indicate past infection but it is not very useful for early diagnosis because of the time lag.”
“Second, we need to make an assessment of the situation globally and for individual countries to inform the extent and approach on reopening our borders. We will review the rate of transmissions in other countries as well as what they have done to contain the spread. For any reopening of our borders, we are likely to start small and selectively, and to continue to impose a mix of isolation and test requirements to protect ourselves from new imported cases leading to community spread. Third, we must put in place a system to allow us to open up safely. When we allow more business and social activities to resume, there will be more interactions and higher risks of virus transmission at the workplace and in the community. Therefore, we need to step up our capability and capacity to test and detect cases early, contact trace quickly, ringfence close contacts promptly and establish the original source of the infection to stop other undetected transmission chains, if any. These are the key enablers which will give us confidence to reopen. Let me start with the testing as the first key enabler. To date, we have conducted over 140,000 tests for COVID-19, or 2,500 tests per 100,000 people in Singapore. This is among the highest testing rates in the world. But we plan to do more and will continue to expand our testing capacity and to strategically deploy them to yield the greatest impact. Members have asked about different tests and their uses. Today, we use mainly the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR tests, to detect confirmed COVID-19 cases. The PCR works by detecting the virus RNA from a nose or throat swab and is the gold standard for detecting current infection.”
“We can then consider further opening up. This is important to enable our people to start going back to work. It is also important for Singapore to protect our strategic position in the global supply chains as the global economy recovers from COVID-19. We will still need to open up in a phased and calibrated manner, to avoid a second wave of outbreak. There will likely still be cases of infection in the community as the virus is difficult to eradicate. What is key is to keep the number of cases small and reduce the risk of big clusters, through various safeguards and enablers. It would take a while before the COVID-19 outbreak subsides globally or before a vaccine is available. Thus, we will have to adapt to a new way of life and social interactions. Ms Sylvia Lim asked what indicators we will look at in considering lifting the circuit breaker measures. We will consider a variety of factors. First, numbers are important but they are not the only thing. We need to be assured that community transmission locally is stemmed or very low. Community cases should ideally fall to zero or single digit daily, with very low numbers of unlinked cases and not just for one day but sustained over a period of time. We also need to see a decrease in migrant worker cases. These cases are high today partly due to proactive case-finding in some settings. While we have been able to keep local community cases low despite higher number of cases among migrant workers, it is equally important to reduce the migrant worker cases over time, though it will take a while longer. Otherwise, we will continue to be at risk of a spillover from the dormitories into the wider population.”
“All these efforts require close coordination among multiple agencies, as the example of CCF @ Singapore Expo illustrates, to ensure operations are optimised, facilities are well-managed, patient flows are facilitated and tracked, while keeping watch on the capacity utilisation overall. MOH has set up a Medical Operations Task Force (MOTF) with the support of the SAF to oversee and coordinate our efforts on the ground. I want to thank our partners and SAF in particular, for their support and efforts. Looking ahead, while we take heart in the progress made, especially in the community cases, we should not be complacent. There are still unlinked cases and cases picked up from our surveillance programme, indicating the presence of hidden cases in the community. Globally, the number of cases also continue to increase. Even countries and regions with low daily numbers, such as China, Hong Kong, South Korea and New Zealand, are watching out anxiously for a second wave of infection that may result in another prolonged outbreak. Hence, we must continue to do what we can to keep our cases low, to keep the lid tight even as we gradually roll back some of our circuit breaker measures. We are now at the end of the two weeks of tighter circuit breaker measures. Last Saturday, the Multi-Ministry Task Force announced the gradual resumption of selected activities and services in the coming weeks, subject to the necessary safe management measures being in place. The rest of the circuit breaker measures will continue to apply till 1 June. If we work together, by 1 June, we hope our situation would have improved further, with community cases remaining low or coming down further. Migrant worker cases in the dormitories will hopefully by then be clearly under control.”
“For example, for the first hall in Expo, this was made possible through the hard work of individuals from Temasek Holdings, Singapore Expo, Surbana Jurong, the Integrated Health Information Systems, Resorts World Sentosa as the managing agent, PSA, ST Engineering, Certis Cisco, Parkway Pantai and the Woodlands Health Campus as well as the SAF. The list is long, but this gives us a sense of the complexity of the operations and how closely everyone had to work together. Through the efforts of everyone involved, we managed to set up the first hall in a week. This is truly an exemplary example of a Whole-of-Society effort. Next, let me talk about Community Recovery Facility (CRF). We have also set up these CRFs which is a step-down facility for recovering patients. Based on epidemiological evidence and research by local and international infectious disease experts, patients who remain well at day 14 of their illness are past the critical stage and are unlikely to need further medical care. However, they still have to be isolated to reduce the risk of transmission. Hence, patients past their day 14 of illness can be safely transferred to the CRFs before they are assessed for discharge. We currently have around 2,000 CRF bed spaces, with some of them within our dormitories and others in selected SAF camps. We will be expanding CRF capacity to more than 10,000 beds by end June. As our CRF facilities increase, we can also free up space at the CCFs. With this layered set of healthcare facilities customised to patient needs, we will be able to provide the most appropriate care for patients while also ensuring sufficient healthcare capacity to meet our needs.”
“Currently, 28 COVID-19 patients are in our ICU, as the majority of the cases are mild. We have about 150 vacant ICU beds and can quickly bring another 300 online. But we are not taking any chances as we must preserve our buffer capacity. Mr Leon Perera had asked about our ability to further ramp up. The public hospitals have put in place plans to ensure that their infrastructure, equipment, medications and manpower are in place to add another 450 ICU beds by mid-May if needed. We have also ensured a sufficient supply of ventilators and other ICU accessories to support the care of ICU patients. The majority of our COVID-19 cases have only mild symptoms. Hence, we have expanded our medical facilities to care for patients with mild symptoms and those who are on the recovery path and no longer need extensive medical support. These facilities allow the hospitals to focus resources on providing care to those who require emergency and intensive care. The Community Care Facility (CCF) is one such facility for patients with milder symptoms. At the CCFs, patients continue to be monitored and have access to appropriate medical care when needed. Currently, we have more than 10,000 beds in our CCFs for our patients. These include places such as the D'Resort at Paris Ris, Singapore Expo Halls 1 to 6 and part of Changi Exhibition Centre. Another 10,000 are being set up. Building up our CCF capacity called for a multi-agency effort comprising Government agencies and the private sector. Many teams had worked round the clock to make this possible, and I want to extend my gratitude to all of them.”
“This is partly because most of our patients are younger and partly due to the tireless efforts of our healthcare workers in providing good and timely medical care for all our COVID-infected patients. We must continue to do all we can to save patients who become gravely ill and keep fatalities as low as possible. In preparation for the expected increase in the number of cases, especially from the dormitories, we have rapidly expanded our healthcare capacity. This includes both medical facilities, and also healthcare manpower. We have seen countries whose healthcare systems were overwhelmed and this quickly led to high numbers of death among patients. Ms Irene Quay has asked if we have an ethical framework to allocate use of healthcare resources. We are working hard to avoid getting to this point. We have planned ahead, created and ramped up many different types of healthcare facilities to support the specific needs of COVID-19 patients. In addition, our healthcare system has the flexibility to stretch our capacity to respond to increasing demand. Let me elaborate. First, on hospital and ICU beds. To ensure that there is available hospital capacity to care for COVID-19 patients, public hospitals have postponed non-urgent elective procedures and discharged medically stable long-stayers to step-down care facilities. Public hospitals have also repurposed and converted existing wards into isolation rooms and progressively opened more wards for COVID-19 patients. Our number of isolation beds has increased from around 550 in January this year, to close to 1,500 as of 2 May 2020. NCID has also increased their capacity from about 100 to more than 500 negative pressure isolation beds in the same period.”
“We moved in quickly, set up medical posts in all the purpose-built dormitories and provided mobile medical support for the factory converted dormitories. MOH worked with the Inter-agency Task Force led by MOM to ensure the medical needs and welfare of the workers are taken care of. We are grateful for the assistance of the Task Force's members including the SAF and SPF and our healthcare workers from our public healthcare institutions as well as from the private sector. We are making progress and will continue to do our best to care for our migrant workers. Minister Teo will elaborate on this in her Statement. Notwithstanding stringent precautions, there have also been cases at our Nursing Homes and at one Welfare Home. As these facilities serve the elderlies who are a vulnerable group, we take such cases very seriously. MOH has ramped up more aggressive testing for staff and residents at these Homes, working jointly with MSF. This is to protect our vulnerable seniors, by quickly picking up hidden cases if any, to isolate them and care for them and thus protect the rest of the Homes' residents and staff. We have started this, but it would take some time to complete. Meanwhile, we may see cases picked up at these Homes as a result of the active screening. In addition, we are also arranging lodging for staff who interact with residents at designated accommodation facilities on-site or at hotels, to reduce their exposure to the community during this circuit breaker period. Both these steps complement existing safe distancing and infection control measures, so as to enhance protection to our seniors in these Homes. Overall, despite our high case numbers, we have managed to keep death rates low so far.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to update Members again on the COVID-19 situation and address some of their questions. When I spoke in March 2020, we were seeing the centre of the pandemic shift away from China, and a rapid increase in cases globally. Close to 80% of our cases then were imported, mainly from returning Singaporeans. We tightened our border controls and our import cases have drastically reduced. In the past week, we had no imported cases, down from around 16 a day on average in March. At the same time, we have seen a rise in community cases from nine a day in March, to 31 a day on average in the week before circuit breaker, with an increasing proportion of unlinked cases, suggesting that there is underlying community transmission. We decided to do the hard thing – to impose circuit breaker measures from 7 April 2020, and introduced stricter measures following that on 21 April 2020. We also extended the circuit breaker measures to 1 June 2020. There are signs that our circuit breaker measures are working. The average number of new community cases had fallen from 31 in the week before the circuit breaker, to 11 last week. The average number of new unlinked community cases a day had similarly reduced from 12, to five over the same period. This suggests that our circuit breaker measures are effective. Let me take this chance to acknowledge the many sacrifices of our people, workers and businesses during these past few weeks of the circuit breaker. It has not been easy, but you have all played a part in bringing these numbers down and I want to express my heartfelt gratitude. But we are not out of the woods yet. While the community cases are coming under control, we have seen a rise in migrant worker cases, particularly in the dormitories.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, as Minister Josephine Teo will be delivering her Ministerial Statement, may I also have your permission to allow her to take Question Nos 11 to 21 in her Statement, please.”
“Speaker, Sir, I will be making a Ministerial Statement later. May I have your permission to take Question Nos 1 to 10 in my Statement instead.”
“To consolidate and simplify the rules for all, we will be revoking the current workplace regulations and general preventative regulations once the relevant provisions have been folded into the control order made under the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act. The circuit breaker will be imposed until 4 May. We will review the situation then to decide whether there is a need to extend the circuit breaker period and, if so, whether some of the measures need to be adjusted. To sum up, Part 7 of the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Bill is needed to ensure tight adherence to the enhanced safe distancing measures in reducing the transmission of COVID-19 for the overall well-being of the nation. Everyone must play our part, act responsibly and observe the measures set out to protect our population. I ask for the support of all the Members of the House for this Bill so that, together, we can win the fight against COVID-19.”
“The penalties are aligned with those under the Infectious Diseases Act. For first-time offenders, the penalty is a fine of up to $10,000, or imprisonment of up to six months, or both. For second or subsequent offences, the penalty is a fine of up to $20,000, or imprisonment of up to 12 months, or both. Apart from powers, there are also provisions in the Bill for safeguards. First, let me emphasise that the Minister may make such orders only when the Minister is satisfied that the incidence and transmission of COVID-19 constitute a serious threat to public health and that the provisions of a control order are necessary or expedient to prevent or contain the spread. Second, a control order and any amendment must be presented to Parliament as soon as possible after its publication in the Gazette and Parliament may pass a resolution annulling the control order or any part of it or make any amendment of it. Third, the Minister must publish the control order such that it is brought to the notice of those affected by it, in addition to publishing it in the Gazette. Mr Speaker, the provisions in the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Bill to enforce the heightened safe distancing measures take reference from the existing Infectious Diseases Act and Regulations and further calibrate the powers to suit our specific needs during this present COVID-19 situation. The provisions adapt existing powers on safe distancing. In addition, they allow us to close certain types of workplace premises while allowing those that are essential to everyday living and supply chains to operate. This carefully balanced approach allows us to minimise social interactions to curb further transmission.”
“For instance, if the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Singapore, it may become necessary to requisition buildings suitable for conversion into accommodation and care facilities in order to isolate individuals who are suspected or confirmed to be infected, to reduce the risk of further spread, while caring for them. I am very grateful that, today, many hotel and building operators have voluntarily stepped forward in this difficult period to work with the Government to support the national COVID-19 efforts. However, in a crisis like this, time is often of the essence and we cannot rely solely on commercial negotiation or the goodwill of the resource owners. We will need to move fast. Should the RORA be invoked, the Government will exercise these provisions judiciously and work closely with the affected parties. The Bill empowers the Minister or any public officer authorised by the Minister to appoint enforcement officers to take action against individuals, business owners or entities which flout the orders and requirements. The enforcement officers will include police officers, public officers and health officers appointed under the Infectious Diseases Act. For our enhanced safe distancing measures to work, we need members of the public to take the measures seriously. Therefore, failure to adhere to the measures without a reasonable justification will constitute an offence. We need to send a strong signal to those who are egregious in flouting the measures, as they are putting not only themselves but also others at risk. Let me reassure Members that the enforcement officers will look at the facts of each case carefully, including whether there are reasonable explanations for any non-compliance, before taking action.”
“While the majority of Singaporeans are responsible and will try to comply with the safe distancing measures, there will, inevitably, be a few individuals who do not treat the situation seriously and blatantly disregard the rules. For example, they may refuse to adhere to safe distancing measures put in place by F&B venues, such as coffee shops or supermarkets, or they may loiter and inter-mingle in groups in public areas instead of staying at home. In doing so, they place themselves and others around them at risk of infection. We will not hesitate to take action against such persons and send a strong signal to prevent such behaviour from negating our collective efforts during this crucial circuit breaker to slow down the infection. Third, the Bill also allows the Minister to prohibit events and gatherings or impose conditions on how they are conducted and on the participation in such activities. This enables us to better regulate events and gatherings, including those that take place on private properties. For example, we had earlier required certain events and mass gatherings to be deferred or cancelled. We will now also disallow social gatherings of any size in both private and public places. This would include having private parties or gatherings with families or friends not living together, at home or in public spaces, such as in parks and HDB void decks. Fourth, the Bill provides the option to bring the Requisition of Resources Act (RORA) into effect, for the purposes of containing COVID-19 and caring for the patients and those at risk. This allows for the requisition of land, property or services needed to ramp up our healthcare capacity and public health capabilities.”
“Services that are not essential and will therefore have to close their physical premises include fashion retail outlets, beauty and wellness services, and public and private recreational facilities, such as gyms and swimming pools, including those in private condominiums. For premises that remain open, the Bill also provides powers to set requirements for the premises and the manner of carrying out the business while it is in operation. For example, F&B providers like hawker centres and restaurants can remain open but only for takeaway or delivery. Dining-in is not allowed so as to reduce people interactions. Businesses and owners of premises that remain open will also need to implement strict safe distancing measures, such as minimising staff on-site, introducing staggered work hours or avoiding social interactions during meal times, as well as ensuring safe distancing for queues, if any. Second, the Bill allows the Minister to put in place measures to restrict the movement of people in specified places, as well as to limit the usage of specific premises and facilities. The Bill allows the Minister to restrict individuals’ movements and interactions at their place of residence or any specified place, as well as their use of common areas, such as void decks and shared facilities in HDB estates and private condominiums. Members of the public are urged to stay at home. There are good and necessary reasons for going out, and these will be allowed by the control order, but we would strongly urge everyone not to go out, except to purchase daily necessities, essential services, or for urgent medical needs. And when they are out, they must adhere to the safe distancing measures.”
“It is an important opportunity for us to work together to slow the infection significantly. The key message is simply this: “Stay home. Go out only for essential activities. Avoid close contact with people. If you cannot avoid close contact, wear a mask to protect others and to protect yourself.” Everyone must play our part for the circuit breaker to be effective. To effect our plans, we have included provisions in the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Bill to provide the legal basis to enforce the enhanced safe distancing measures. These are temporary measures specific to the COVID-19 situation we are facing currently. Let me elaborate on the key provisions. The Bill provides the Minister for Health the power to close premises, such as workplaces, schools, recreational facilities and places of worship, to minimise interactions and reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission; while allowing premises that provide essential services or are in selected economic sectors which are critical to our local and global supply chains to remain open so that services vital to Singapore’s security and to Singaporeans’ daily living can continue to be provided. Examples of essential services include healthcare, transport, cleaning services and food-related services; and supply chains, such as F&B establishments, supermarkets and food manufacturing. The list of essential services is published online (https://covid.gobusiness.gov.sg/essentialservices). The Public Service will also be fully operational and Government services will be available, but with the majority of the public service workforce telecommuting.”
“Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister announced in his address to the nation last Friday a set of strict measures to slow the transmission of COVID-19 in Singapore. On the same day, the Multi-Ministry Taskforce shared the details of these measures, which include moving towards full home-based learning for our schools, closing most physical workplace and other premises, prohibiting social gatherings and urging Singaporeans to stay home and not to go out unnecessarily. This enhanced set of safe distancing measures serves as a critical circuit breaker to curb the trend of increasing local transmission of COVID-19. The trend is particularly concerning in the past week. The daily number of new cases crossed the 100 mark two days ago. There was also an increasing number of unlinked cases in the past week, which suggests that there are quite a number of undetected cases within our community which have led to these unlinked cases. We are also starting to see the emergence of new clusters daily. The Government has taken a series of steps progressively over the last three months to curb the spread of COVID-19 in Singapore, based on our risk assessment of the evolving situation both locally and globally, as well as our anticipation of the likely trends and developments ahead of us. It is now timely to introduce heightened measures, given the worrying trends, to curb a further rise in cases and pre-empt widespread community transmission. In other words, we need to apply brakes, hard brakes, to slow the transmission. This is what we mean by a circuit breaker. Enhanced safe distancing is necessary to significantly reduce movements and interactions in both public and private places. This circuit breaker is not a holiday.”
“The Ministry of Health reports the relevant COVID-19 information and statistics regularly to keep Singaporeans updated. We also share information on the number of tests conducted from time to time where relevant. To date, we have conducted more than 65,000 COVID-19 tests. An average of around 2,000 tests are conducted daily.”
“I thank Dr Lily Neo for her very important questions, always. The capacity of ICU in NCID, we still have capacity and we have room to expand the capacity. But, I must say that the main constraint is not so much in the physical capacity, but on the manpower. Because we do want to make sure that our healthcare manpower are properly deployed in the most impactful place. Many of them are very stretched and very tired, and some of them have fatigue. We try to support them as much as we can, but what is most important is all of us do our part to keep the numbers low, to keep the cases low, to help prevent transmission. In this way, we will do our part in helping these healthcare workers. We do have flexibility to expand our ICU capacity, if necessary. In terms of average length of stay, it is very difficult to have average length of stay for ICU because each case is quite different. There are some cases who went in for a few days, they are able to recover. If their lung function has recovered, we will discharge them to normal wards. But there are some who have been in there for quite some time, some may be more than a month. So, it is not very meaningful to have average length of stay in terms of ICU because it does differ from patient to patient. Generally, for those who go into ICU, they tend to stay a bit longer because the conditions are more serious. We do keep a lookout for them, we try to provide them with as much support as possible, because in the end, for infections like COVID-19, we depend to a large extent, on their own immunity system to take over, to fight the infection.”
“I will answer on behalf of Minister for Home Affairs on Police work. First, I want to thank the Police for helping us to do contact tracing. Of course, there are also others, including the SAF who are helping us as well. But I want to assure you that despite the involvement in the contact tracing, their duties as a Police Force has never been diminished. And for criminals who think that they may have an easy time during this period, perish the thought. On the misinformation, I will ask Minister Iswaran to respond in a while. I will ask Minister Wong to answer the rest of the questions.”
“Let me address the question on healthcare capacity and the burden on healthcare facilities. I will leave it to Minister Wong to talk about public transport as well as the advisory. I should also take this opportunity to thank Minister for Communications and Information, Mr Iswaran, who is always in the background. But his Ministry and him have been very crucial; they play a very vital role in managing our public communications, the WhatsApp that you receive from Gov.sg came from the Ministry, so we want to thank MCI for their hard work. On the healthcare facilities. We always try to have a benchmark beyond which we turn on the switch or turn off the switch. But in the healthcare system, we do not operate like that. We look at the whole scenario and disease pattern, and we adjust as we go along. So, even today, if you ask me, we are under pressure too. Our resources are stretched but we make adjustments to accommodate the trend of the growing number of cases. If the cases continue to grow we will continue to adjust. As I mentioned today, we have started to send patients to private hospitals and we are sending patients with mild and stable conditions to our community isolation facilities. These are our strategies to keep our healthcare system moving and still maintaining certain buffer capacity, in case there is a surge. Unfortunately, I would not be able to give you a single number because it is really a whole set of conditions and we adjust as we go along. I think we have sufficient flexibility in the healthcare system.”
“The Member can give us the details and we will follow up on this particular case. I think the Minister for Home Affairs has already talked about those who fail to comply with our Stay-Home Notices and Quarantine Orders. Those, we will take care of. Even those behaviours that endanger the health and safety of the public, we have sufficient legal powers to go after them. So, I will encourage members of the public – if you come across any of these actions that put public safety or health in danger, do let us know and we will go after them. We need everyone to play their part to keep Singapore safe and healthy.”
“Just to answer the first two questions. First, on the housing support for our frontline workers. We do have a scheme to help frontline workers. If they have this requirement, please let us know and we will try our best to help some of our frontline workers are staying in rented houses or rented apartments – we do want to appeal to the landlords to allow them to continue to stay in these apartments. In the hospital, they are given protective gear so they are safe, so allow them to continue. Let us not segregate them. Let us not ostracise them. We ought to be inclusive. That is the key message. But for healthcare workers who do need housing support, we have been working with the Clusters' management to extend our support to them. The second question on the asymptomatic cases. We do have asymptomatic cases. That means people who are infected that do not have symptoms or they have mild symptoms or their symptoms are so mild that patient themselves do not know that they have such an infection. But it is also professionally assessed that for those with very mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, they are unlikely to spread because the spreading requires the projection of your droplets and so on. So, those require quite significant symptoms. Studies have shown that for the mild symptom cases, the risk of transmission is significantly lower. It is not that there is no risk at all, but the risk is significantly lower. So, that is the status. We are carrying out studies on surveillance and as well as serological tests to determine whether there were underlying cases that were not detected. So, some of these experiments and surveys are on-going.”