MORE than 4,600 first- year students at Republic Polytechnic are staying home this week instead of going to school, as latest figures show the institution has 66 confirmed H1N1 cases - the largest local cluster in Singapore.

Similarly, close to 100 remisiers from CIMB-GK Securities were told to stay home for seven days when two of their colleagues were diagnosed with the virus.

These are just two of the many examples of how organisations across Singapore are trying their best to control the spread of H1N1, even closing parts of their premises in some cases.

But is 'advising' - the word used frequently by organisations and the government these days - people to remain at home for a week effective?

Without making it mandatory - by law or some other directive - for a person to stick to a stay-home order, what is to stop them leaving their house?

Anecdotally, it's common to hear of people doing just that. Most people, if told they need not go to work or school, will not realistically remain cooped up at home for seven days, especially if they are not sick to begin with. At some point they will go out for one reason or another, be it to take their children to school, buy food - or even to catch a movie. Whatever the activity, it's a surefire recipe for disaster as far as the risk of spreading H1N1 to the wider community is concerned.

If imposing an official home quarantine order - which gives the government the power to act against those who break it - is not possible, given the fact that many people have no symptoms of H1N1, more innovative solutions need to be found.

On-site quarantine is one way, which is what some army camps and, more recently, Raffles Institution have done, confining people to the premises to reduce the chance of inter-mingling as much as possible. But this is only feasible for organisations that have sufficient resources and facilities.

All the signs point to a spike in the number of H1N1 cases in the days ahead. With families returning from the June school holidays last weekend, more cases are likely to surface by the end of this week, by which time the families would have already come into contact with many other people.

By Monday night, Singapore had 629 confirmed H1N1 cases - a sharp rise from 80-odd just 11 days before on June 18.

It will not be surprising to hear of more schools and offices shutting down soon - but it's pointless if nothing is done to keep tabs on those who have been asked to stay home. Already, some have complained of conflicting signals from the authorities. Schools, on the one hand, want students to stay home for a week; the Health Ministry, on the other, advises people to monitor their health for symptoms of H1N1.

Which is the right way to go? As the world awaits a vaccine, and while other solutions are thought up, it's time to make sure that people take the instruction to stay home seriously.

It's a tall order to rely on everyone to be socially responsible. It just takes a handful of selfish people to step out of the house for the risk of community spread to worsen.