Daily Briefing: NTU to offer free COVID-19 testing for hall residents; 19% of employers in SG think hiring activity will never recover to pre-COVID-19 levels

And SG’s Claritas HealthTech to acquire tele-radiology player IHV.

From ChannelNewsAsia:

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will offer free COVID-19 testing to its hall residents as part of efforts to keep the campus safe, it said in an email to students on 7 December.

“To keep all hall residents and our campus community safe, the University, in consultation with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health, will offer COVID-19 swab testing to new and returning hall residents," the NTU President's Office said.

“Hall residents are strongly encouraged to undertake the swab test.This is part of the Government’s efforts to expand the COVID-19 testing regime to selected community groups,” it added.

NTU said the testing will help them “better monitor the prevalence of COVID-19 and contain any asymptomatic cases in the community quickly,” particularly in a communal living environment that “may pose increased risk of community transmission.”

Read more here.

From HumanResourcesOnline:

With Singapore slowly opening up its economy, hiring activity is expected to gradually recover, with some sectors recovering faster than others.

But, will it go back to pre-COVID-19 levels?

According to ManpowerGroup's latest Employment Outlook Survey, 12% of employers estimate this bounce back will happen in the next three months, by Q1 2021.

About a tenth (9%) predicted this will take four to nine months, whilst 4% expected it to recover within the next 10 to 12 months.

Almost a fifth (17%) of employers estimated that it would take more than a year to recover, whilst 19% thought that hiring activity will never recover.

Read more here.

From DealStreetAsia:

Claritas HealthTech is acquiring Integrated Health Ventures (IHV), both in Singapore and its associated company in India, the AI medical image processing company said in a statement.

IHV’s CMIE healthcare platform provides tele-radiology with multiple use-cases in diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine, the statement said, adding it has a network of hundreds of hospital and diagnostic centres as clients, including in India, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Claritas, which is also based in Singapore, has been developing a complimentary platform allowing doctors to book imaging requests more easily and then get access to images and reports via web and mobile viewers.

The company also develops tools for AI-assisted interpretation of medical imaging.

The two companies’ products will be marketed together as tRAD, the statement said.

Read more here.