SINGAPORE — From Monday (July 12), groups of up to five will be allowed to dine-in at food-and-beverage establishments and wedding receptions will be allowed as Singapore further eases restrictions on safe distancing measures amid an improvement in the Covid-19 situation. 

Announcing these new measures in a virtual press conference, the multi-ministry task force leading Singapore’s pandemic response said that gyms and fitness studios will also be able to conduct maskless indoor sports and exercise activities for groups of up to five persons. 

Sports and exercise classes of up to 50 people including the instructor will also be allowed, depending on venue capacity limits.

Working from home, however, will remain as the default so as to reduce overall interaction within workplaces and on public transport, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a statement on Wednesday. 

“Employers are reminded to ensure the practice continues. And for employees that need to come to the workplace, to stagger their start times and implement flexible working hours,” MOH said. 

Social and recreational gatherings at the workplace will now be allowed but must be limited to group sizes of no more than five, in line with the other rules, MOH stressed.

The update on the Phase Three (heightened alert) measures comes as new community cases in Singapore continue to fall.

There were 28 cases in the past week, compared with 86 in the week before. 

The number of community cases with no known sources of infection also fell to four cases in the past week from 14 in the preceding week. 

Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, who is co-chair of the task force, said: “Through our combined efforts, we have been able to bring the infection under control. And importantly, we have made very good progress in our vaccination programme… so we can now proceed with the next stage of our reopening.”

MOH said that while the group size for people dining out would now be in line with the five-person rule for house visits, it is still a higher-risk activity due to the closeness of unmasked people with each other.

As such, live entertainment, recorded music, videos and television screenings will continue to be banned since this would reduce the expulsion of droplets from individuals having to raise their voices over such screenings or acts, the ministry said.

MOH also said that wedding receptions may now proceed with no more than 250 people with pre-event testing in place. If there are 50 guests or fewer, pre-event testing will be required only for the wedding party.

More details about weddings as well as sports and exercise activities will be given later, it added.