JUSTIFICATION FOR PROVISION OF ALLOWANCE UNDER QUARANTINE ORDER BUT NOT UNDER ISOLATION ORDER

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Assoc Prof Jamus Jerome Lim
MP for Sengkang GRC 

Question No. 1895

To ask the Minister for Health what is the justification for an allowance to be provided under a Quarantine Order (QO), but not under an Isolation Order (IO), which requires comparable stoppage of work.

Written Answer 

Quarantine Orders are issued to a close contact of a Covid-19 positive person to ringfence the spread of the disease. So the quarantine person is well, is able to work, but not allowed to. The Quarantine Order Allowance Scheme was introduced to encourage the adherence to the quarantine and to cushion the impact on self-employed persons and companies.
 
Isolation Orders are issued to a Covid-19 positive person who is infectious and are not expected to move around. There is no allowance allocated to such a person as in all other illnesses.