For what it seems was the longest time, families in the same household had to split up into groups of 2 to dine out.
This rule was relaxed from 10 Nov, allowing up to 5 fully vaccinated people from the same household to eat together at F&B establishments – except for hawker centres and coffee shops.
However, these places will be finally be open to diners from the same household by the end of Nov.
Just like in other F&B establishments, they’ll have to be in groups of not more than 5, and fully vaccinated.
In a press release on Monday (15 Nov), the Ministry of Health (MOH) said it’s more challenging to implement and enforce vaccination-differentiated measures (VDS) at hawker centres and coffee shops.
But it seems that the authorities have been working on how to do it.
As such, the 1st group of hawker centres will have systems to check vaccination status and control access of patrons before end-Nov.
Once these systems are functioning, MOH added, they’ll be able to allow groups of 5 from the same household who’re fully vaccinated to dine in – just like other F&B establishments in Singapore.
The remaining hawker centres are expected to follow suit soon after.
For coffee shops, similar systems to control access and check vaccination status of patrons will be offered to them.
If they’re taken up, the coffee shop can also allow groups of 5 from the same household.
If not, the same rules will apply – groups of up to 2 people only.
Since dining out was permitted from 10 Aug, the restrictions at hawker centres and coffee shops had been particularly stringent.
They haven’t been allowed to have groups of more than 2 since then, so even families living under the same roof have had to split up.
In response to calls from people like food blogger KF Seetoh to raise the cap, MOH said it’ll be “impractical” as hawker centres and coffee shops are “open and porous”.
When unvaccinated people could still eat there, at least checks weren’t necessary.
However, VDS was extended to these places in Oct, meaning that stallholders were faced with the onerous responsibility of checking for vaccination status instead of just letting patrons scan for SafeEntry.
According to MOH, it’s important to have proper checks on vaccination status for people entering hawker centres and coffee shops.
This is so that only the fully vaccinated are allowed to dine there.
The ministry also emphasised that the unvaccinated can get infected easily at mask-off settings like these.
Thus, strict vaccination checks can make “a very significant difference” to the number of people warded for Covid-19, especially in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Many might be wondering how it can be verified that people are from the same household.
MOH said that more documents, including Government digital apps, will be accepted for dine-in patrons to prove this.
Thus, diners will be able to furnish 1 of the following:
It will surely be good news for families that they will once again be able to dine in anywhere without having to be split up.
The various checks may be more troublesome, but hopefully it helps keep the number of hospital admissions down.
If that’s so, we might be able to look forward to more loosening of restrictions in future.
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Featured image from MS News.
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