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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“We do have plans if the situation warrants to allow the milder cases to self isolate at home. We will serve them home quarantine or stay home notices to allow them to recover at home. But at the moment we do not need to do that because we still have community facilities that we can tap on, but it is part of our options. Secondly, on the level of testing. So far, we have a relatively high level of testing. But also we do very targeted testing. Because testing is not only laborious, it also requires resources to be put in place; not just for the testing but for the laboratory resources as well. So, it is very important for us to ensure that we are very targeted and focus on those who are at higher risk of infection. Therefore, for those who are under the Quarantine Orders or SHN, we also do risk assessment. For those who have a higher risk of exposure, we may do targeted testing for them. But we do not do blanket testing because that will first create a lot of false negatives, which give a false sense of assurance that "You are okay", and then, they go around spreading the virus. So, you should be always careful and mindful. Even for those who have been discharged, you must continue to be careful because if you are not infected, after you have left the quarantine facility, you may get infected. It does not ensure that you have lifelong immunity because you have never been infected before. So, therefore we must be very careful. We must assume that everyone has a potential of being infected, so we take the necessary precautions.”
“So, do take precautions if you want to visit your seniors. I think it is not possible to ask ourselves to stop visiting seniors. We have to continue to visit them, but when you do so, exercise caution and practise a high level of personal hygiene, particularly when you are dealing with seniors.”
“Thank you. Let me first stress that all of us must take COVID-19 seriously. It does not mean that the young do not have to take the disease seriously. Because there is always a risk that if you have more people, even young people, getting COVID-19, you may pass it on to the old people around you, including those with chronic diseases. And families as well. It is true from our data that those older patients and those with underlying chronic diseases, like cardiovascular diseases, tend to have more serious disease outcomes. So, it is important for us to enhance our protection for the elderly but we must not take the disease lightly. From our own experience in the ICU in our hospitals, we do see some young people who develop serious diseases. Part of the reason – I think I have explained during the last Sitting – is because of their auto immune system overreacting to the disease and therefore, it causes damage to their organs. We do have one or two patients in our ICU who are young and who happen to have very serious disease outcomes. But it is, I think, generally correct to say that this disease is likely to affect the seniors more severely and especially those with underlying chronic conditions. So, we have to pay particular attention to the seniors among us, but as the Prime Minister commented just now, even if young people get it, there is a risk that you pass it on to your family members, including the seniors in your family. So, we must always be careful. MOH has issued a set of guidelines for seniors as well as for young people when you interact with seniors. Do not just leave it to the seniors to protect themselves and we happily go to their homes to say "Hello" to them and share a dinner with them. We may be the vector, we may be the cause of their infection.”
“Thank you. This is a very important question and it is an issue that we are addressing and that we are paying a lot of attention to. For the enforcement of the Stay-Home Notice, we have help from the Home Team, so may I ask the Minister for Home Affairs, Mr K Shanmugam to respond.”
“Sir, the terms of reference of the Ministerial task force does not include consideration of the General Election. Perhaps, I can invite Senior Minister Teo to speak on this topic.”
“While we should keep a wider physical distance between ourselves and others, we need to close the emotional distance between us. As Prime Minister pointed out, this is as much a psychological battle as it is a medical one. To win the battle, we must close ranks while keeping a safe physical distance. We should not stop caring about fellow Singaporeans or build walls between ourselves. On the contrary, we need to be more united than ever so that we can ride through this crisis together. We can show our appreciation to our frontline workers who are working very hard to keep Singapore clean and Singaporeans safe, and show our support to colleagues and friends who have acted responsibly and isolated themselves when they feel unwell. The months ahead will be challenging. We need to be prepared for disruptions to our daily lives and changes to how we do things. But I am confident that if we stay united, with a whole-of-society effort, we can get through this together as a nation – SG United. [Applause.]”
“For example, after the SAFRA Jurong cluster arose, we suspended all senior-activities at Community Centres, Residents Committees, Senior Activity Centres and others. While some Members of Parliament, I think, Ms Denise Phua, asked me at the last Sitting whether we can resume some of these activities, I was very happy to say yes, then. Now, I am afraid it will be a while longer before we do that, to protect the seniors. Seniors are of particular concern to us. MOH introduced an enhanced set of measures last week together with a set of guidelines to protect our seniors. We encourage seniors to maintain good personal and environmental hygiene like everyone else and engage in more home-based activities rather than joining group activities. For example, they can exercise at home with TV and online exercise programmes, as well as enjoy broadcast programmes covering singing, so they do not need to join karaoke groups, but they can join TV programmes and sing-along; cooking and other programmes by celebrities and People's Association trainers. Do not go out except for essential activities such as work or to buy food and supplies. Family members and care-givers of seniors should also take precautions such as washing hands with soap and water before interacting with seniors and refraining from visiting seniors if one is unwell. Each of us needs to play our part to take care of our seniors. With these added precautions in place, seniors can continue staying active and healthy. The measures we have put in place are extra "brakes" to slow down the transmission of the virus, prevent our healthcare system from becoming overwhelmed, help bring the number of cases back down over time, and protect, particularly, our seniors. Sir, let me conclude.”
“The Government will continue to put in place measures to protect Singaporeans as I have shared earlier, but the daily actions of each one of us will go a long way in winning this war. If you have been issued with a quarantine order or Stay-Home Notice, please stay at home and abide by the requirements of the order or notice. If you violate them, there will be penalties and the heaviest penalty is that you may infect others, including those you love. If you are unwell, please wear a mask and see a doctor immediately. If you have been given a medical certificate, please stay home for the whole duration covered by the medical certificate. Wash your hands with soap regularly and do not touch your face. It is literally in our hands to contain this outbreak. In Singapore, we saw a few local clusters emerge where individuals who were feeling unwell or were issued a Medical Certificate but did not minimise social contact and continued to attend work or social activities. We have encouraged employers to support employees to spend the necessary time away from the office so that they can recover. Studies on COVID-19 have shown that for each ill person who behaves responsibly, we can protect two to three others from being infected. It is not just about ourselves, but those around us too, including our loved ones. For the young and healthy among us, we may get away with a mild cold or cough, but for the more vulnerable loved ones around us, the disease may prove to be more serious. So, we must not take social responsibility lightly. We have been progressively putting in place safe distancing measures, especially for the vulnerable groups.”
“To achieve this, we have to continue to strengthen our efforts to detect cases early to initiate the contact tracing process as soon as possible to reduce the risk of the infection spreading. In preparation for the expected surge in cases in the coming weeks, we have expanded our contact tracing capacity, from three teams when we started out, to 20 teams today, thanks to manpower support from colleagues from Public Service agencies, including the SAF. We can now trace up to 4,000 contacts each day and will continue to scale up our contact tracing capacity as needed. We are also leveraging technology to supplement our contact tracing efforts. For example, last week, MOH and GovTech launched the TraceTogether app, which will capture data on whom you have come into contact with for some time. This will be useful if you have come into close contact with a confirmed case which you do not know. By downloading and activating this app, the contact tracers will be able to inform you early so that you can isolate yourself and protect your family, or receive early treatment if you are already unwell. For those who are concerned about privacy, I would like to assure you that the app does not track your location, so where you go, does not matter, the app does not know. It uses Bluetooth to detect if you have been in close proximity for more than 30 minutes with someone else with the app switched on. I urge Members and all Singaporeans to download the app to protect yourselves and your families. I have spoken multiple times about the importance of social responsibility, here in Parliament as well as publicly.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. If we do nothing, the number of cases will shoot up, like what happened in several cities and countries recently. Then, our only hope is that most of the population get infected and become immune quickly, and the rate of infection will start to slow down as more become immune, or a vaccine or a cure is found. That is when the curve starts to trend downwards. This scenario is very attractive, we get over with it very quickly, but there are unfortunately, two major risks. First, an uncontrolled spike in the number of cases in a short period of time, like the purple curve, will overwhelm the healthcare system, easily resulting in high mortality rates, and there is no turning back once you are on this track. The second risk is that it is not certain yet that this immunity will be effective or sustained. So, one alternative, is to introduce stringent safe distancing and other measures to slow down the infection curve, to slow down the infection rate. The number will still grow but if we do it right, we will end up with a lower peak. This is commonly known as flattening the curve, as Members can see, on the blue curve. But by flattening the curve, we may actually stretch out the pandemic. So, Members see a long tail, meaning it will take much longer for the pandemic to be over. So, for Singapore, today, we are still at the start of the curve, so we have a chance, we have a chance to do neither. We hope, that if we do it right, we can significantly slow down the growth as much as we can, until the whole pandemic is over, without either a sharp peak or a long tail. This may sound impossible, because this are the two curves that have been established by academics. But, impossible as it may sound, we have to try our best to do so.”
“A lower infection rate will help us to better conduct epidemiological investigations, contact tracing and quarantining of close contacts, so as to prevent further spread of the disease in the community. It also preserves healthcare capacity to care for the more severe cases. With your permission, Mr Speaker, may I display a slide on the LCD screen to illustrate this point?”
“As per public hospitals, Singaporean residents and long-term pass holders transferred to these facilities will continue to receive free-of-charge testing and treatment, except for those who have travelled overseas despite the travel advisory and contracted the infection while overseas. Patients at these facilities will continue to be quarantined and closely monitored, so there is no risk to the general public in the community. Similar to cases admitted to hospitals, patients will be closely monitored and repeatedly tested for the virus. Only when they have fully recovered and tested negative for the virus twice over a duration of 24 hours, will they be discharged back into the community. At this point, they will no longer have any risk of transmitting the virus to others as they have fully recovered. We will continue to explore the use of such isolation facilities for our well and stable COVID-19 patients. This way, we can focus our critical hospital resources on the seriously ill, to minimise the number of fatalities. But rest assured that any Singaporean who requires medical care, whether for COVID-19 or other illnesses, will receive the necessary treatment and care. Let me take this opportunity to explain our strategy going forward and share what we can expect. While we implement plans to ensure sufficient healthcare capacity, it is equally important to prevent new local clusters in the first place. This way, we can try to avoid an exponential growth in the number of infections, which could quickly overwhelm the healthcare system, as we saw in Hubei and Italy; and increasingly so, in many other countries. Singapore's strategy is to slow down the infection rate and maintain it at as low a level for as long as possible.”
“As more clusters emerge, our contact tracing, quarantine and healthcare resources will be stretched. If the clusters grow too large, such as those we see in the Life Church and Missions and Grace Assembly of God or SAFRA Jurong, if we have a few of them at the same time, it will be very difficult to contain them effectively, and the pressure on our healthcare system will increase. While we still have sufficient capacity in our healthcare system today, we cannot be complacent and we will need to preserve our buffer capacity. Previously, all confirmed COVID-19 cases, regardless of severity, were admitted to our hospitals and remained there until they were tested negative for the virus twice, over a period of 24 hours, and this takes up our capacity. We took this conservative approach earlier on in this epidemic, as there was little knowledge about the severity of the disease and we wanted to find out more. However, we now know that about 80% of COVID-19 cases were mild to moderate. That means many of the COVID-19 cases in our hospitals experience mild symptoms, no more than that of flu. They only require limited medical care and what we need really are isolation facilities to prevent them from infecting others, until they are free of the virus. Therefore, MOH is tapping on private capacity and setting up community care facilities, such as the collaboration with Concord International Hospital which started accepting well and stable COVID-19 patients last Friday and Mount Elizabeth Hospital which saw its first patient on Monday. We are also converting some Government Quarantine Facilities, starting with D’Resort with a maximum capacity of about 500, for this purpose.”
“They have been working tirelessly to make sure that our patients, COVID-19 or otherwise, are well taken care of. I want to take this opportunity to thank our healthcare workers once again for their dedication. [Applause.] We recognise the heavy workload and stress that our healthcare workers face every day. The surge in patient load due to COVID-19 means that some are taking on longer shifts, while others are required to take on additional roles. To ensure the well-being of our healthcare workers, institutions will make sure that their staff are well-rested and have put in place a series of measures to reduce staff burnout, such as counselling services and peer support programmes. Most importantly, every case we can avoid will help to lighten their load. Hence, each of us can help by doing the right thing to reduce the risk of transmission. I also want to also thank Singaporeans for your resilience, your understanding and support in adapting to these new measures and changes quickly and putting up with inconveniences and disruptions to your daily lives for the sake of other Singaporeans and our community. With the global situation still evolving and the number of cases rising rapidly worldwide, we must prepare to see more cases here too in time to come. Yesterday, we had 17 local cases in addition to 32 imported ones. We must work together and do what we can to keep the number of local cases down. With a significant number of imported cases from returning residents and visitors, we have progressively put in place travel restrictions and placed returning residents on the Stay-Home Notice (SHN) and quarantine, but there is still a risk of them leading to more localised transmissions.”
“Many Singaporeans and businesses will need to make adjustments as this is not something that will be over quickly. The measures we announced yesterday will impact many businesses and workers. The Government will introduce greater support for the economy and our workers in response to this situation. Members of Parliament have asked about healthcare capacity. We will ensure that we have sufficient capacity to meet our healthcare needs not only for COVID-19 patients but also for other patients. We had invested significantly in the past to ensure that we have sufficient healthcare capacity to manage infectious outbreaks. The 330-bed NCID was purpose-built with spare capacity and can be further increased to over 500 beds if need be. To preserve capacity and resources for those who most need it, clinicians at our public hospitals had earlier reviewed their patients and deferred non-urgent appointments and elective procedures where clinically appropriate to do so. They have continued to see patients with higher needs to ensure that they receive timely care. When appointments had to be deferred, the public hospitals have worked to ensure that patients received sufficient supportive care. We are also exploring collaborations with private hospitals for some non-COVID-19 patients to be cared for there instead. We already have on-going collaborations with some of them and some of these can be stepped up so that we can preserve capacity in our public hospitals to manage the outbreak. Patients transferred to these private hospitals through such collaborations will continue to pay similar rates they would have paid at our public hospitals. The most important resource, actually, is our healthcare staff.”
“For treatment, a COVID-19 therapeutic workgroup comprising members from various hospitals across different disciplines as well as Health Sciences Authority or HSA, has been set up to work on guidelines for repurposed drugs with antiviral activity, such as Lopinavir-ritonavir, Interferon Beta-1B and hydroxychloroquine, to treat infected patients in Singapore. The National Centre for Infectious Diseases or NCID, and Tan Tock Seng Hospital, together with Singapore Blood Blank, have initiated donor recruitment to collect convalescent blood plasma from recovered patients to treat other COVID-19 patients. Our doctors have also been participating in international clinical trials, with collaborators such as the US National Institutes of Health. For vaccines, scientists all over the world have successfully isolated and cultured the virus, which will aid the development of a vaccine. The international community is also working together to identify vaccine candidates and conduct clinical trials. For example, some institutes such as Moderna Inc have already started human trials as of last week. In Singapore, Duke-NUS Medical School is working with Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations or CEPI, and international partners to develop a clinical trial for a vaccine, with plans to start testing sometime this year. With all these on-going efforts, WHO estimates that the earliest a vaccine will be ready would likely be sometime next year. We do not know how long the pandemic will last, but we have to plan on the basis that COVID-19 will be with us for a long while, maybe till the end of the year or longer and ensure that we have the resources and capabilities to see us through. COVID-19 has also taken a toll on our economy. The impact will extend way beyond the pandemic.”
“Singapore residents have benefited from more than 267,000 subsidised attendances at these clinics thus far, on top of that at our polyclinics. To date, we have done around 39,000 tests for COVID-19. This translates to about 6,800 tests per million people in Singapore, compared with around 6,500 in South Korea and about 1,000 in Taiwan. These tests are important in helping us to detect as many cases as possible and as early as possible. The moment a case is confirmed, we activate contact tracing to identify close contacts and quarantine them as soon as possible, so as to reduce further spread of the disease. The Government has put in place many measures to reduce imported cases, and to trace and isolate any such cases as soon as possible to prevent spread. But every one of us needs to play our part in practising good personal hygiene, social responsibility and safe distancing to further reduce the risk of local transmission. We announced several safe distancing measures yesterday. Minister Lawrence Wong will elaborate on these later. I hope that Singaporeans will support these measures and keep up good hygiene habits which will play an increasingly important role in our fight against COVID-19. During the COS debate, I mentioned Singapore's efforts in developing research and knowledge on COVID-19 and sharing these with other countries. There is an article today in today's paper about an innovative rapid test kit being developed by A*STAR's researchers. We hope they will go to trial soon and give us an additional weaponry against COVID-19.”
“The top three sources of importation to Singapore are the United Kingdom, the United States and Indonesia. And over the coming weeks, the number of cases will continue to rise, as some of our around 200,000 overseas Singaporeans return home from all over the world. We have slowed the local spread thus far through a three-pronged approach: first, reducing importation; second, detecting and isolating cases early; and third, emphasising social responsibility and good personal hygiene habits. To reduce the risk of importation, we have stemmed the inflow of travellers by imposing border controls and issued travel advisories to advise Singaporeans to defer their travel plans until the situation around the world is under control. Minister Lawrence Wong will elaborate on this later in his speech. We have also strengthened checks at our borders to detect and isolate cases before they come into contact with the Singapore community. For example, since January, we have progressively put in place temperature screening, health checks and swabbing at all our checkpoints. All who meet the suspect case definition are conveyed directly to the hospital, while all symptomatic travellers as well as some selected travellers are swabbed as a precautionary measure. Beyond our checkpoints, we have also put in place a system to detect cases early, through surveillance at hospitals, polyclinics as well as Public Health Preparedness Clinics. We have re-activated Public Health Preparedness Clinics just over a month ago and today, we have more than 900 clinics offering subsidised consultation and treatment for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents with respiratory illnesses.”
“As of yesterday, there are more than 370,000 COVID-19 cases and over 16,500 fatalities from the disease worldwide, and the epicentre has shifted to Europe and, perhaps, United States. The number of deaths in Italy alone has exceeded that in China. World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March. How the outbreak develops globally will depend on the strategies and efforts of countries around the world. WHO has advised that we can still change the course of the pandemic if all countries take the necessary actions to contain the outbreak. Otherwise, we will continue to see the number of affected countries and cases rise rapidly. Regions such as China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, had experienced a reduction in the number of cases a few weeks ago, but have started to see increases in new cases in the past few days driven by imported cases, arising mainly from residents returning from abroad. We face similar challenges. Currently, in Singapore, we have 558 confirmed cases, of which two have passed away; 155 have been discharged and most of the rest remain stable or are improving. From late-January to February, Singapore saw an initial wave of imported cases from China. Some of these resulted in several local transmission chains, such as the Life Church and Missions and Grace Assembly of God combined cluster which resulted in 31 cases. However, in recent weeks, we are seeing a second wave of imported cases. In the past week alone, the number of cases in Singapore more than doubled, from 266 to 558 cases. Almost 80% of these new cases were imported, all from countries other than China even though we continued to see around 1,000 residents and long-term pass holders return from China in the past week.”
“Mr Speaker, Members. Minister Lawrence Wong and I first spoke about COVID-19 in Parliament in January. And I updated Members again during the COS debate earlier this month. The situation continues to evolve rapidly and we would like to take this opportunity to provide a further update on the latest situation and our strategy going forward. As the task force involves multiple Ministries, may I have your permission, Mr Speaker, to invite the relevant Ministers to respond to clarifications on their respective responsibilities?”
“2 In addition, community intervention teams have been established to support GP partners and community service providers with allied health services such as psycho-social therapeutic intervention, counselling and psycho-education. MOH will continue to work with public hospitals and service providers in the community, including schools, social service agencies and family service centres, to provide holistic and timely support for persons with mental healthcare needs.”
“The Ministry of Health (MOH) works with the public healthcare institutions to attract and retain psychologists and clinical psychologists to meet the needs of persons with mental health conditions. We offer the Healthcare Graduate Studies Award (HGSA) to fresh graduates or mid-career professionals from non-healthcare backgrounds to pursue postgraduate studies in Clinical Psychology.1 Over the past five years (2015 to 2019), we have offered a total of 14 such scholarships. Some of the scholarship recipients have since completed their studies and started work in our public healthcare institutions. We have also reviewed the salaries of clinical psychologists and psychologists to keep them competitive. For example, in July 2019, we raised the starting salaries of psychologists and clinical psychologists, together with that of other Allied Health Professionals. As a result of our efforts, the number of psychologists and clinical psychologists in our public healthcare sector has grown by an average of 7% per year over the past three years (note: 2017 to 2019 figures). At the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), the provision of care to patients is holistic, comprising both medical and psychological support. The overall care plan is crafted after the patient's psychiatric condition and his psycho-social needs are assessed by the attending doctor. Based on the assessment, the patient may be prescribed medications and provided with psychotherapy support. Persons who require mental health support in the community can also tap on mental health services provided at polyclinics. The number of patients who were attended to by psychologist at polyclinics and hospitals was approximately 20,200 in 2016, 21,600 in 2017 and 22,300 in 2018.”
“Through this campaign, we hope to build a strong foundation of public health, raise the standard of public health – whether it is in our food outlets, in our public areas, in our public toilets – and at the same time, also entrench a higher standard of personal hygiene, and look at how we can improve some of the social practices like common servicing spoons and chopsticks in our restaurants. 4.15 pm These will go a long way in helping us to minimise and reduce the risk of widespread community transmission. As of today, we still do not have evidence of widespread transmission in our community here, but we cannot allow our guard to come down. We have to continue to be mindful and to exercise and practise high levels of personal hygiene.”
“Mr Chairman, I thank Dr Lily Neo for this very important question. As I mentioned in my speech, we do expect to see more cases coming in, given the emerging cases all around the world. Many countries are beginning to see confirmed cases of COVID-19. In quite a number of countries, there are already significant community spread within the country and, therefore, there is a high risk of exportation of these cases to Singapore. We have raised precautionary measures: as you have seen, in recent days. We have introduced new travel advisories as well restrictions and we have also introduced a swab practices for those passengers or travellers who are showing signs of being unwell. These will help us to prevent or to minimise the number of imported cases. But some of these cases may still be imported because it is not possible to stop every case. Many of them may enter without symptoms because it is still within the incubation period. They may begin to fall sick while they are in Singapore. And there may also be Singaporeans returning from these areas – they may also develop symptoms, after arrival in Singapore. Therefore, we do expect to see a significantly higher number of cases in time to come. With a higher number of cases in Singapore, the risk of community spread will also increase. Therefore, it is important for us to re-emphasise the need for us to pay attention to public health and personal hygiene. That is why I mentioned that the SG Clean campaign is very important.”
“I am heartened to see that so many of our residents are committed to staying healthy and actively participate in activities. (In English): Sir, keeping everyone healthy is a team effort and we are all part of that team. So, let us all play our part to keep Singapore and Singaporeans in good health. [Applause.]”
“One example we are already deploying is the Singapore Eye Lesion Analyser Plus (SELENA+). This is a deep-learning artificial intelligence software system which can detect three major eye conditions: diabetic eye disease, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration. SELENA+ highlights areas with potential vision threatening eye disease and refers abnormal cases to human graders, allowing them to focus on the more complex cases. SELENA+ has proven to be more efficient in delivering fast and accurate results. Building on SELENA+'s capabilities, a predictive risk assessment model for cardiovascular disease will be developed to help doctors accurately identify high-risk patients and conduct more timely interventions to save lives and achieve better outcomes. To conclude, shaping better healthcare in Singapore is not something that MOH and our healthcare providers can do alone. Everyone will have a role to play in this. We can start by taking care of our own health – by taking responsibility to keep ourselves healthy, we can live better, longer and healthier lives. Mr Chairman, if I may, let me speak in Mandarin. (In Mandarin): [Please refer to Vernacular Speech.] To battle COVID-19, we must be calm and not panic. As long as we take the right precautions, pay attention to personal hygiene, we can carry on with our day-to-day activities. I would like to take this opportunity to urge Singaporeans to exercise more and stay healthy. I am happy to see that many of our exercise programmes have resumed, after putting in place the appropriate safety measures. Last Sunday, together with Minister Masagos and a few colleagues, I went to the Teck Whye Garden in Choa Chu Kang to take part in their community morning exercise that was just resumed.”
“We can make wise decisions and choices and have a trusted family physician to turn to for advice. Only then can we ensure that our healthcare system is sustainable and remains affordable for our patients. Information technology (IT) will continue to be an essential enabler for our healthcare system, and we will continue to strengthen our governance and safeguards on our data. This will be essential to maintain the public's trust. Over the past year, we have been taking concrete steps to implement the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry (COI) on the SingHealth cyber attack. These steps will help to raise the cybersecurity posture of the public healthcare system. Close to 80% of the control measures recommended have been implemented or mitigated. The more complex measures require careful implementation to avoid disrupting essential healthcare services and impacting patient safety. These will be progressively completed by 2022. Various enhancements have also been made to strengthen the security of the National Electronic Health Records (NEHR). Work is still on-going and the enhancements are being implemented. Mandatory contribution to NEHR will be deferred until all enhancements are completed and we are satisfied that the system is assessed to be sufficiently robust. We will further updates at the appropriate juncture. [Mr Speaker in the Chair] While we secure our systems, we continue to explore new technologies, such as telemedicine, how they can improve care. To-date, 25 public healthcare institutions and 39 community care partners have started video consultation pilot services. We will also leverage technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and robotics to support the work in public healthcare, which Dr Chia has asked about in his cut.”
“This is partly the result of making care more accessible and affordable to all, and partly due to earlier diagnosis, closer monitoring and follow-ups for medical conditions, that means, more frequent consultations and treatment. The range of treatment options has also expanded as the frontiers of medicine advance, increasing utilisation, but at the same time, improving lifespans and the quality of life. That is five percentage points of the 11%. Approximately, another four percentage points of the growth in national health expenditure can be attributed to higher manpower costs. On the one hand, our healthcare workforce expanded significantly between 2012 and 2017. On the other hand, our healthcare workers' salaries also increased as we implemented pay adjustments to attract and retain our healthcare workers. So, that is four and five, that, is nine percentage points out of 11%. The remaining two percentage points have largely been due to increases in the costs of drugs, medical devices and other overheads. And as Deputy Prime Minister highlighted in his Budget 2020 round-up speech, we can expect that the overall national health expenditure will continue to increase as our population ages and we step up our investments in facilities and services. But we must continue to be prudent in our healthcare expenditure to ensure that it is directed towards where it gives us the best outcomes. Therefore, to answer Dr Chia and Ms Tin Pei Ling's questions on what our strategy is going forward, we must continue on our transformation journey for healthcare to ensure we have a good and sustainable system. We must press on with our efforts to go beyond healthcare to health, beyond hospital to community and beyond quality to value. Patients too can play a role.”
“The first phase of redevelopment is scheduled to be completed by 2030. Ms Tin Pei Ling has asked about healthcare capacity in the east. Changi General Hospital (CGH) is currently the only hospital in the east. While we have added significant capacity in CGH through expansion over the years, the healthcare demand has grown substantially as a result of population growth and ageing. Ms Tin will be pleased to know that we have commenced the planning of a new integrated acute and community hospital in the east, targeted to be ready around 2030. While the hospital will include the normal range of hospital services, we also want to hear what the community would like to see in this new hospital. As such, SingHealth, which will be operating this new hospital, will be engaging the community to co-create ideas to better meet the needs of the residents there. SingHealth will reach out to the community leaders when they are ready to do so. Expanding our healthcare system will also mean that expenditure on healthcare will grow, both in the development cost of building new facilities, and later on, as the cost of operating these facilities. Overall, our national health expenditure increased from $13 billion in 2012 to $22 billion in 2017, or about 11% per annum. Of this 11%, about five percentage points of this 11% increase was due to increased utilisation. Let me explain. As our population ages and grows, demand for healthcare services also increases, as some Members of Parliament observed earlier. We are also utilising more healthcare than in the past, even after accounting for ageing and population growth.”
“For example, one of the programmes will empower newly diagnosed patients with diabetes to initiate and sustain lifestyle changes through group health coaching and greater peer support. To win the war on diabetes we will need concerted, multi-year efforts and many of these efforts will only bear fruit in the long-term. However, we will continue to monitor the intermediate outcomes, like physical activity and dietary practices to better track the progress of our various initiatives. Going forward, I would like to assure Dr Chia Shi-Lu and Mr Christopher de Souza that we will continue to invest in new healthcare infrastructure and facilities to ensure care continues to be accessible to meet the needs of the ageing population. We will be opening four more new polyclinics in over the next two years. Senior Minister of State Lam will share more about the expansion plans for our polyclinics later on. Woodlands Health Campus is scheduled to open progressively from 2022. We had experienced some challenges during the construction due to soil conditions, but we have mostly caught up. Now, with COVID-19, we are discussing with our contractors and suppliers to assess the impact and we hope to minimise delays. Other upcoming facilities include a new community hospital in Novena and the redevelopment of two national specialist centres, that is, the new National Cancer Centre and the National Skin Centre. MOH had previously announced that National University Health Systems (NUHS) would design new and innovative care models and test them at the Alexandra Hospital (AH) as part of AH's future development. The master planning exercise of AH was completed in 2019 and we will be calling tender soon for Medical Planners for this project.”
“For example, we have created more options for healthier meals. As of 2019, one in two stalls across hawker centres and coffeeshops listed at least one healthier option on their menu, as part of the Healthier Dining Programme (HDP). The number of healthier meals sold also grew to 205 million in 2019, up from 158 million in 2018. The prevalence of regular leisure-time exercise has also increased by about six percentage points from 29% to 35% between 2017 and 2019. We will be launching a public campaign later this year to increase awareness on regular diabetic foot and eye screening. With greater awareness, we hope to reduce the incidence of lower limb amputation and give our patients better quality of life. These are just some of the many efforts we are taking on preventive healthcare that Ms Tin Pei Ling has asked about. Senior Parliamentary Secretary Amrin will be sharing more on our efforts later. Besides prevention, we are also providing greater support for individuals living with diabetes. Under our Patient Empowerment for Self-care Framework, we have developed the National Diabetes Reference Materials on HealthHub, as a comprehensive resource for patients and their care-givers. This is helpful for patients and families as they can "self-help" themselves to information about their condition and what they can do for better disease management. For example, patients who wish to start exercising can learn simple, safe and practical ways to do so. These materials can also be customised by healthcare professionals for their own patients. Our healthcare clusters will also be commencing pilot programmes from the second half of 2020 to increase patients' ownership of their care journeys.”
“Over the years, we have progressively enhanced and expanded the Community Health Assist Scheme (CHAS) to make primary care more affordable and for all Singaporeans. We also introduced the Pioneer and Merdeka Generation Packages in 2014 and 2019 to help our senior generations. Since then, almost one million Pioneers and Merdeka Generation seniors have received over $2.5 billion in benefits. We rolled out the MediShield Life and will be launching CareShield Life (CSHL) later this year together with other changes to make MediSave usage more flexible which many Members of Parliament have asked about. Senior Minister of State Tong will go into greater details later on. Most importantly, our overall healthcare outcomes have improved, with longer life expectancy and Health Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE). This means that Singaporeans are not only living longer but living longer in good health. 1.30 pm However, this is the bad news. There is still room for improvement. Singaporeans are still living about 10 years in ill health. Several factors have contributed to this. Based on National Population Health Survey 2017, for example, approximately one in three of residents aged 40-69 has hypertension, one in seven has diabetes and two in five have hyperlipidaemia. To combat chronic diseases, we declared War on Diabetes in 2016. Let me give an update on the War on Diabetes that Mr Chen Show Mao has asked for. To overcome this fearsome adversary, we have to start at the ground level, to build a strong foundation by shaping an eco-system that encourages healthier choices like living healthy lives and staying physically active. While healthier lives for Singaporeans will take many years of effort to realise, some of our efforts have yielded early progress.”
“The details of the Special Bonus for our healthcare workers will be released in due course, but for now our focus is to keep up our fight to contain the spread of COVID-19. Mr Chairman, even as we tackle the COVID-19 outbreak, we need to continue to plan forward and build our healthcare system. MOH first introduced Healthcare 2020 in 2012 to increase accessibility, raise quality and enhance the affordability of healthcare services. We are now in 2020, Dr Chia Shi-Lu, Mr Christopher de Souza and Ms Tin Pei Ling have all asked how we have fared with regard to Healthcare 2020. Mr Chairman, I must say I did not expect to still be Minister for Health in 2020. But I am still Minister for Health and I am happy to share that MOH has delivered on what we promised. [Applause.] We have invested significantly in infrastructure to add capacity. In 2019 alone, we opened the National University Centre for Oral Health Singapore and Outram Community Hospital. The Sengkang General and Community Hospitals, which first began seeing patients in 2018, were also officially opened in 2019. Of course, we also opened the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) in time for this COVID-19 outbreak. We stepped up building of long-term care facilities too like nursing homes and daycare centres to meet the needs of our ageing population. We continued to improve the quality of care, with significant expansion in medical school and nursing intakes to ensure sufficient healthcare manpower. We expanded our polyclinic and GP networks, and further integrated patient care through the introduction of team-based care, and strengthened referral pathways to our Specialists Outpatient Clinics (SOCs). We have made healthcare more affordable for all.”
“We will have to continuously adjust, fine-tune our measures to deal with the disease so that life can go on while appropriate precautions are put in place. I am glad to see the SG Clean campaign picking up momentum and I would like to thank Minister Masagos for leading this important effort. More initiatives will be announced later. All of us have a role to play and we must continue the good practices that have proven effective in reducing the spread of infectious diseases – such as staying home when unwell, practising good personal hygiene. I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but sometimes broken records are good. We should also maintain high public hygiene standards in our food centres and public toilets. This will strengthen our collective resilience against COVID-19 as well as other infectious diseases, while allowing us to go about our daily lives as normally as possible. Our healthcare workers are critical in our efforts in managing and containing this outbreak. I want to assure Dr Chia Shi-Lu that they are well-trained on infection control and prevention, and are provided with the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for their safety. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their contributions and their dedication. As Deputy Prime Minister announced, we will be giving them a token of appreciation through a Special Bonus for healthcare workers in our public hospitals and institutions, who are directly involved with treating COVID-19 patients. The senior management of our three healthcare clusters have informed me that as a gesture of solidarity with our healthcare workers, they will donate their own Special Bonuses to the staff welfare fund of their respective clusters.”
“This will help to preserve the trust between the people and the Government so that we can have the support of the public as we work together to fight COVID-19. It is also crucial to counter and respond decisively to fake news to avoid diversion of our resources and prevent disruption to our efforts. The international scientific community has been working hard to study the virus, share new findings and develop solutions. We are sharing our best practices, research and knowledge on COVID-19 with other countries. For example, scientists from China published the genetic sequence of the COVID-19 virus quite early on, on 12 January 2020. Within just over a week, Singapore’s National Public Health Laboratory (NHPL) developed a specific PCR diagnostic test. Shortly after, A*STAR produced a PCR test kit, which has been used locally and shared with international partners to help identify patients and contain the disease. Our scientists are also participating in international clinical trials for treatment and vaccines. Ms Sylvia Lim asked about using blood plasma for treatment. We are indeed planning to do so and NCID is collecting blood plasma from patients but there are limitations and constraints. It may take some time before effective treatments and vaccines become available. As the global situation evolves, many countries may become infected. It will become increasingly difficult to stop the virus at our borders as we cannot ban visitors from every country and shut ourselves out from the world. Even amongst our closest neighbours, the situation is also evolving. Therefore, it is likely that we will continue to see more cases and this disease will stay with us for quite a long time.”
“Mr Chairman, several Members of Parliament have asked about COVID-19. Let me provide an update on the situation. As of 4 March 2020, yesterday, we have 112 confirmed cases, 79 have been discharged while 33 patients remain in hospital. Of these seven are in critical condition. Contact tracing is on-going. Dr Chia asked about contact tracing, we are indeed strengthening our capability on contact tracing efforts. I want to thank Singaporeans for their cooperation and support for the various measures we have implemented, without which, our efforts will not be effective. Globally, the number of cases outside mainland China continues to grow at an alarming rate across continents and regions. This is worrying as they pose a high risk of importation of cases into Singapore. Therefore, we must expect to see significantly higher numbers of new cases in time to come. In line with our risk assessment of the situation, we have implemented precautionary measures, including travel advisories and restrictions, temperature screening, contact tracing, quarantine, among others. Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Christopher de Souza asked about the effectiveness of our current strategy and how we can better prepare for the future. We have to appreciate that every outbreak is different. COVID-19 is different from SARS and different from H1N1. Even as we do our best to learn from each outbreak and prepare for the next, we must always expect the unexpected. To mount a swift and effective response, we have to adopt a whole-of-Government approach and mobilise the resources of all the relevant agencies. This will allow us to assess, decide and execute our response quickly. It is important to be transparent, too and share the information we know as soon as possible.”
“Over the past three years, the number of children aged 7 to 18 years old1 admitted into public hospitals2 for mental health conditions3 was approximately 569 in 2016, 640 in 2017 and 607 in 2018.4 Hospitals currently do not track whether an admission is due to attempted suicide. Based on records from the Ministry of Home Affairs, from 2017 to 2019, an average of 1,204 cases of attempted suicide was reported each year.5 A whole of society approach would be key in supporting youths with mental healthcare needs as the Ministry of Health continues to work with health and social agencies to ensure that we provide timely and holistic care.”
“As of 17 February 2020, there were 77 confirmed cases of Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19) in Singapore. Of these, 10 were staying in hotels or serviced apartments. One was living on board a cargo vessel, one was living in Malaysia, and one was living in a dormitory. Six were evacuated from Wuhan and quarantined on entry. The remaining cases were living in residential housing prior to diagnosis.”
“This will allow us to have a sense of what is happening on the ground in reality and give us a sense of judgement of how the situation is evolving. This is a useful approach.”
“I think the conclusion is the other way around. The cases that we have determined as confirmed are real cases. But other countries may have more cases than what they have reported. That is what the reports say. The Member is right that some of the cases may have mild symptoms. But, generally, they may last quite some time and, therefore, after five days, if you have not yet recovered, then we are suspicious of you. Even then the doctors have to make a clinical judgement. It does not necessarily mean that once you have pneumonia, you will be referred and, if you do not have pneumonia, they will rule it out. The doctor will make a clinical judgement based on your condition and history, whether you have been in contact with multiple groups of people that have been exposed, for example. They also want to take your history, whether you have indirect contacts. The doctors are well-trained and very experienced in making clinical assessments. So, we will leave it to the doctors to make their ground assessments. But the Member is right that it is not possible to detect 100% of the cases. We are doing the best we can. Usually, it is not done like that. We do proactive surveillance, meaning we look at all possible cases of pneumonia and some non-pneumonia cases we also investigate to see whether we are able to pick up cases. We also have a sentinel surveillance programme, which means we actually randomly pick patients in the community to test for potential respiratory infections, including COVID-19. This will allow us to pick up cases that would otherwise have gone totally unnoticed. It is a surveillance. So, it is not 100% testing everybody. As I have said, we cannot test 30,000 cases every day. It is just not possible. So, we do sampling.”
“Therefore, they are served these Stay-Home Notices to allow them to stay at home, minimise contact with the outside community to minimise the risk of spread. These are generally healthy people and they do not have immediate known contacts with confirmed cases. So, as a precaution, we want them to stay at home. We want to minimise the risk of exposing them to the community and, therefore, we have this Stay-Home Notice which is enforceable and requires them to be at home all the time until the notice period is over. This is a precautionary measure. So, there are actually three different levels: (a) those who are confirmed cases, they are in hospitals; (b) those who have close contacts with confirmed cases, they are of a higher risk and they are served quarantine orders; and (c) those who are returning from China, have been exposed in China, but no direct contact with known cases and these are served with Stay-Home Notices.”
“First, let me explain that there are different categories of people who are served certain notices and orders. For those who are ill with COVID-19, confirmed cases, all of them are in the hospital. So, once they are confirmed, they are treated in the isolation wards in the hospital. They are not running around in the community. But at the same time, once we have identified a positive case, we identify the contacts of these positive cases. These are the people who have been with the confirmed cases for an extended period of time and they are potentially exposed. These people are served with what we call quarantine orders. For quarantine orders, there are strict rules for compliance and there are staff and officers who will do surveillance and make sure that they are in our quarantine centres. Some are served home quarantine orders. They are also very strict orders under the Infectious Diseases Act and they have the full force of the law to ensure that they stay under the home quarantine orders. But I also need to emphasise that these people who are served quarantine orders are not sick. They are exposed to persons who are sick but they themselves are not down with COVID-19. Once they have symptoms, because they are under close surveillance, they will be immediately conveyed to the hospital for treatment and follow-up. So, again, if they become one of the confirmed cases, they will be treated in the hospital. So, they are all in isolation. There will be a group of people like those returning from China. They were exposed in the community but they do not have direct contact with a potential case. So, their risk level is significantly lower than the close contacts of confirmed cases.”
“Indeed, Mr Speaker, we do want SACs to continue as much as possible. But it is also important that some SACs and organisations have temporarily suspended some of the activities in order for them to put in place some precautionary measures. Some of the measures may need time for them to set up. Some organisations may need time to work out exactly how to manage some of these activities. Therefore, I assure Ms Denise Phua that we do want to work with the organisations which are overseeing these activities to put back as many of these activities as possible and practicable while taking necessary precautions, particularly all the health promotion activities and exercises. In times like this, exercise is important to keep ourselves healthy and resilient. So, we do want to encourage the activities and exercises to continue with the necessary precautions. The Health Promotion Board (HPB) as well as the various voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) may take some time to study the situation, put in place the necessary appropriate precautions and we encourage them to restart as soon as possible. And instead of coming to the SACs, some of them may congregate in the coffee shops, which has the same effect of mixing. So, rather than being in the coffee shops, we might as well organise them in the SACs so that we are able to manage them to prevent transmission. We take the Member's point fully and will work with the various organisations to do that.”
“This is also an opportunity for us to reinforce these socially responsible practices, ensure that when we are sick, see a doctor and observe personal hygiene practices, wash your hands frequently. It does not mean that once COVID-19 is over, if it is ever over, we stop washing hands. So, I think it is a habit that we should inculcate today and live life as normally as possible and take necessary precautions.”
“Maybe I should ask Minister Lawrence Wong to answer this question, but let me try to answer the Member's question. I think what Minister Lawrence Wong intended to say is that, in terms of statistics, based on today's evidence, that transmissibility seems to be much faster, much higher, quite close to H1N1. And therefore, we do expect a significant number of cases both globally as well as in Singapore in time to come. In terms of fatality, the numbers today show that in the whole of China, it is about 2% to 3%. Outside Hubei, it is about 0.5%. Whereas SARS was closer to 10%. And therefore, it is quite different in terms of fatality compared to SARS. This is the nature of the disease, and the knowledge of the disease is still evolving, as I mentioned in my reply, and the scientists are still discovering new things about the disease. These numbers may change over time. We are watching them, but this is as it stands today. Therefore, it looks more like H1N1, we do need to expect to live with it for quite a long time. H1N1 has infected more than 400,000 Singaporeans in Singapore alone within a year. And H1N1 is still with us today; occasionally, we still see cases of H1N1. We may have to learn to live with it. That is why, even today, we are encouraging Singaporeans to live life as normal as possible. Life must go on, take the necessary precautions, but we can continue to live normally as much as possible so that there is no need to have drastic shifts from one way to the other. But precautions like temperature taking, seeing a doctor when unwell, these are normal precautions which, in fact, even without COVID-19 or H1N1, we should be practising.”
“I thank the Member. I think that the clinic managers and the GPs know exactly what to do. For those who are patient-facing and potentially have a risk of exposure to potential COVID-19 or other infectious diseases, they would usually wear masks. And sometimes, if their clinics are more for health screening and so on, they are less likely to encounter patients with these illnesses or infectious diseases, they may not need to wear a mask. So, we leave it to the clinics to make a judgement, but we would encourage them that where they have a risk of facing patients who potentially have infectious diseases, including COVID-19, they ought to wear a mask to protect themselves as well as to protect the patients because they may inadvertently pass on the disease to the patient as well.”
“I thank the Member. It is important to read the footnote of our guidelines. And the footnote does say that "doctors are to exercise judgement and to decide how many days to be given". For example, the patient might have already been ill for four days, and so, there is no need to give another five days. So, it is the clinical judgement of the doctor. We said five days and this is a guideline given to the doctors. We encourage doctors to exercise their judgement and we also want Singaporeans to know and to trust the doctors' judgement. Our doctors are well-trained and they know what to do. At the same time, we also want to take this opportunity to appeal to employers to allow the patient – your employees – to go on the five-day MC if he is given five days of MC. Please do not ask him to come back to work, because by coming back to work, if he has the virus, it may actually be exposed to your other employees and your whole company may be affected. So, it is in the interest of the employees to rest at home so that they can recover quickly and it is also in the interest of the employers to ensure that their employees, the workers, stay at home and rest rather than come to work. I also want to take this opportunity to seek the support of our employers to allow us to implement these guidelines so as to minimise the transmission in the community.”
“I also encourage individuals, when you are sick, if you have not recovered within these five days, please go back to the same doctor, rather than to move from doctor to doctor and then we have less ability to track the history. This is the advice I would give to individuals: if you are ill and not well, see a doctor. If the doctor gives you an MC, stay at home throughout the MC period, do not go around and do not go and queue up to buy toilet paper and so on. Please stay home and, if you need help, there is always the MOH hotline that you can call if you need some help. If you are very ill and you need the ambulance, you can always call for the ambulance and we will convey you to the hospital. When you finish your MC, if you are still unwell, go back to see the same doctor and the doctor will then be in a position to make a clinical judgement whether or not you should be sent to the hospital. Our doctors are well-trained and they are familiar with the assessments they need to do on the ground. But it is also not appropriate to ask our primary care doctors to do the test because it requires swabs and special techniques. Some of the doctors may not be familiar with how to do that and it also exposes the doctors unnecessarily to potential infection because swabbing can be quite a hazardous process. It is better done in a hospital environment so that our trained professionals will be able to do it properly. Some private hospitals are planning to do that because they are also trained and they also have the equipment and the facilities to do so safely. We are working with the private hospitals to also allow the private hospitals to do some of these testing in order for us to share the patient load.”
“I thank the Member. Let me just put in context. Every day, we have about 30,000 people down with flu-like symptoms, such as running nose, cough, cold and so on. So, it is not possible to test all 30,000 of them. In the end, every day, we find about five to 10 cases, as Members have seen in the past. So, to find this five to 10 cases every day by testing 30,000 is not going to be very helpful. On top of that, you may have a lot of false positives that you have to chase around. Therefore, the best way for us is for the doctors to make a clinical judgement as they see the patients. If they find that you have signs of pneumonia, then they will refer the patient to the hospital for assessment. If not, our strategy is to encourage the individual to please stay at home for the first five days so that your body will be able to recover. If it is the normal common cough and cold, you are likely to have recovered within these four or five days. This will reduce the amount of noise in the system to allow us to identify cases that are more likely to be problematic. Even for those who do not recover within these five days, it does not mean that you have COVID-19 because there are still a lot of other possible infections that you may be suffering from. In fact, a very small number everyday will be COVID-19-positive. So, therefore, if you are asked to stay home with a five-day MC, do not panic, it does not mean you definitely have COVID-19. The vast majority would not have. This is a means for you to stay at home to rest, to minimise transmission. This will also help by reducing the normal cough and cold transmission, if you stay at home and recover, rather than move around in the community.”
“This is a very difficult challenge because they are, by nature, closed chat groups, it is very difficult for us to monitor. We encourage Members or members of the public, if you come across any of these closed chat groups, if the information does not look real, please check with us, go to gov.sg, wait for the notices to be sent to you through WhatsApp, those are accurate, official information. And we have been sharing as much as we can. All that we know, we share with the public. We have daily press briefings and occasional press conferences by Ministers and regular updates from time to time, even within the day. So, rest assured that we will provide as much information as possible, once we obtain it. There is no need to second guess what the situation is. If you do come across messages or statements that look suspicious, that cannot be verified, please do not forward them to your friends. You may find that amusing or entertaining, but please refrain from forwarding because this will then multiply. You can also help us. If you find that they are suspicious and you are not sure, do forward it to us and we will check on whether they are correct or not and we will let you know the details. So, we have to deal with it one by one, there is no easy solution. But each of us can play our part by not forwarding unverified information, and informing the authorities if you come across any of them.”