SINGAPORE: Upcoming large-scale events such as the Thaipusam celebration on Saturday (Feb 8) and the Singapore Airshow from Feb 11 to Feb 16 will go on, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong said on Friday.

The Government has communicated an advisory on taking necessary precautions to reduce the risk of the novel coronavirus to the event organisers, he said.



The advisory encourages measures such as temperature screening, looking out for symptoms such as cough and runny nose, and denying entry to individuals who are not well.

Mr Wong was speaking during the question and answer session at a press conference to announce Singapore raising its Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (DORSCON) level from Yellow to Orange.



While it is short notice for the Thaipusam procession, measures will be in place, he said.

"My understanding as of now, is that it will continue, and they will take the necessary precautions, including temperature screening at the start and the end, where typically you will have more people coming,” he said.

For the Singapore Airshow, organisers will be looking at limiting the number of public visitors, in addition to other necessary precautions, Mr Wong said.

“Each event organiser, taking into account the advisory will take all these precautions and new measures and they will highlight this to all participants of their own event and they will make public these new measures as well,” he said.

Mr Wong explained that large-scale events are those that have thousands of attendees.

“Our advisory, just to be very clear, is for event organisers to cancel or defer the non-essential ones, but if they wish to proceed, and they can then take all necessary precautions,” he said.

Singapore raised the DORSCON level following several cases of novel coronavirus without any links to previous cases or travel history to mainland China.

On Friday, three new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in Singapore were confirmed, with none of them are linked to the existing cases or having been in China recently, said the Ministry of Health.

This brings the number of cases in the country to 33. There are now at least four patients with no recent travel history to China or links to the other cases.

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