SINGAPORE - Singapore expects the number of Covid-19 cases to increase when it allows more activities to resume and for this reason, it is moving cautiously despite the low number of cases in the community, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Friday (May 15).

To help curtail the rise, contact tracing and quarantine efforts will be stepped up to minimise the risk of large clusters forming, he added at a virtual press conference.

The minister was replying to a question on whether Singapore has successfully "flattened the curve" for community cases, or limited the number to an extent that the healthcare system is not overwhelmed.

The number of daily new cases in the community has been declining after it peaked at 58 cases on April 8, a day after the circuit breaker period kicked in.

Mr Gan attributes the slide primarily to the circuit breaker measures.

These include getting people to work from home and halting the bulk of construction work in Singapore, he added.

But, he said, "as some of the circuit breaker measures are rolled back and relaxed, we are likely to see the number of community cases going up.

"We hope that if we do it carefully and do it right, even as it goes up, it will continue to go up slowly and remains under control."

Otherwise, big clusters may form again, he added.

"So, the strategy is to do it carefully and slowly."

Even though a higher number of cases in the community is expected going forward, "we hope to prevent a large cluster or a sharp spike in the number of cases, which will then require us to perhaps reintroduce some of the circuit breaker measures," Mr Gan said.

The Health Ministry's director of medical services Kenneth Mak added that it falls on everyone to do his part and not go out unnecessarily or have too much close contact with people.

"We must be mindful that these are the at-risk activities that can potentially lead to clusters forming."

He stressed that there will be no let-up in the battle.

"We're still committed to making sure we pick up cases, we will continue to isolate them, do contact tracing if only to make sure that we don't have a big cluster forming in the community," he said.