Singapore: Despite a record Covid-19 outbreak, Singapore opened its borders to 9 additional countries last week. Singapore has updated its travel requirements to enable vaccinated visitors from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. Passengers from these nine countries will no longer be required to observe quarantine restrictions as of October 19th if they pass their Covid-19 tests. The declaration is a significant step forward in Singapore’s strategy to re-establish international ties.
India, on the other hand, is not included in Singapore’s new travel lane scheme. “No vaccinated travel lane arrangement for visitors departs from India,” according to Singapore government travel instructions. “Non-Singapore citizens and permanent residents who have travelled or transited via India in the 14 days before to arrival are now not permitted to enter Singapore,” it continued. Singapore already allows quarantine-free travel from countries in the so-called Category I category, such as China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, albeit most of those countries have not responded.
Nearly 2,000 visitors have entered Singapore under the vaccinated travel lane arrangements in place with Germany and Brunei, with only two Covid-19 cases detected at the time of arrival. Singapore is home to the Asian headquarters of hundreds of multinational corporations, whose executives have long relied on Singapore’s connection. The country, which has a population of 5.45 million people, has been reporting over 3,000 Covid-19 cases per day. However, 83 % of the country’s population is completely vaccinated, one of the highest percentages in the world.