Clockwise of some KTV places that are closed from 15 July to 29 July due to a growing COVID-19 cluster: Level 9, Terminal 10, One Exclusive, and Club M. (PHOTOS: LeveL9thsg, terminal10clarkequay, clubmsingapore, oneexclusivesg/Facebook pages)

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has slammed a recent Nikkei Asian Review commentary on the ongoing KTV COVID cluster as "full of inaccuracies" and based on "imagined realities".

"Your correspondent’s stance appears to be based on a stern disapproval of illegal sexual activity. We commend his high ideals. But his comments on public policies need to be based on facts, not imagined realities," said MHA spokesman Sam Tee on Wednesday. 

The ministry was responding to a 23 July article entitled “The institutional failures behind Singapore's latest COVID outbreak”. As of Wednesday, a total of 247 cases have been linked to the KTV joints cluster, making it the second largest cluster in Singapore. 

With questions raised about enforcement efforts against KTV joints that had breached safe management measures, Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam denied in Parliament on Monday that the government had been "in cahoots" with the KTV operators.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs the multi-ministry taskforce on COVID-19, also told reporters that enforcement remains a "cat and mouse" game, with illegal gatherings taking place in many other settings too.