Associate Professor Jason Lee, director of the NUS Heat Resilience and Performance Centre, explained that people have different thresholds for heat, depending on their age and occupational exposure.

As temperatures rise, vulnerable groups such as the elderly and outdoor workers will suffer more compromise from heat stress. The rest of society will also feel the ill effects of excess heat, he added.

“Heat is compromising us in ways that we are not even aware,” Prof Lee said. “Lack of outdoor incidental physical activity, lack of free vitamin D, exacerbating mental health, poor eye health, because we don’t make use of the sunlight.”

Ms Jaime Lim, director of the Occupational Safety and Health Specialists Department at the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), also 

highlighted how MOM is trying to protect outdoor workers.

MOM’s science-based heat stress framework for outdoor workers mandates that when the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) reaches 32 deg C or above, workers be given a minimum 10-minute break for each hour of physical exertion.