Those who have dreamed of traveling to Singapore may soon have the opportunity. Learn more about Singapore’s reopening and future plans here.
This Singapore night skyline was taken from the Marina Barrage after sunset.
After almost two years of living with the coronavirus pandemic, some countries have decided to work with the pandemic instead of against it — including Singapore.
Joining the likes of Denmark, Chile, Thailand, and a handful of other countries, Singapore is poised to open its borders to foreign travelers who meet the new requirements.
Although the final details are still being worked out, Singapore’s move is a clear signal that the world is slowly beginning to reopen.
The first two countries on the city-state’s ‘green list’ are Germany and Brunei, who can enter starting on September 8 without the need to quarantine or provide proof of essential travel.
After closely following the progress of this soft launch, Singapore will start to add more countries to its approved list. Soon enough, American travelers can obtain their Singapore arrival card for US citizens and have the chance to visit this colorful and interesting country.
A brief history of the coronavirus pandemic in Singapore
As of mid-September, Singapore has recorded nearly 80 thousand cases of the coronavirus within its borders, but only 60 total deaths.
The country was praised to have one of the most well-organized responses to the pandemic thanks to a strict set of preventive measures (commonly known as the “circuit breaker lockdown“).
This included closing the borders early on, mass testing of the local population to prevent further spread of the virus, quickly isolating infected people as soon as possible, and rolling out contact tracing apps such as TraceTogether.
Another key to Singapore’s success was a thorough vaccine rollout program. The Singapore government spent more than one billion SGD to sign purchase agreements with Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, and CoronaVac. Likewise, Singapore was the first country in Asia to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and quickly inoculate the population.
At the moment, more than 80% of the population is fully vaccinated.
Although it escaped the majority of the pandemic virtually unscathed, Singapore began to see a rapid uptick in cases at the end of August due to the new Delta strain.
However, this is not a case for concern: Dale Fisher, a specialist in infectious diseases at the National University Hospital, Singapore, noted that cases were “by and large very mild” in Singaporeans who were vaccinated.
He continued, “In Singapore, it’s really about the people just getting more comfortable with the case numbers and realising that increasing case numbers does not translate to significantly increased numbers in hospitals and severe disease and deaths.”
Singapore’s plan to reopen
Singapore’s plan to reopen the country isn’t new. The government announced a roadmap to living with the coronavirus back in June and even coined an op-ed with the famous phrase, “The bad news is that Covid-19 may never go away. The good news is that it is possible to live normally with it in our midst.”
Singapore has already started to allow unrestricted entry to vaccinated travelers from Germany and Brunei, with the potential to expand to countries with similar epidemiological situations.
“We will move step by step – not in one big bang like some countries, but cautiously and progressively, feeling our way forward,” Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, noted.
After launching the Vaccinated Travel Lane program on September 8, Singapore welcomed its first group of 100 visitors from Germany. Rather than undergoing quarantine at a government facility, travelers were required to provide a negative PCR test before entering the country, as well as periodic tests while in Singapore.
Since rolling out the Vaccinated Travel Lane, nearly a thousand travellers have managed to enter Singapore via the program. Lee Hsien Loong noted that this outcome was “very promising,” and that the country has received nearly three thousand applications from eager potential visitors.
After the success of the first launch, Transport Minister S. Iswaran hinted that more countries may soon join the Vaccinated Travel Lane program.
Those who are concerned about staying healthy and safe while traveling in Singapore shouldn’t worry, as the program will consider a variety of factors before adding a country to the green list. These factors include the COVID-19 incident rate, vaccine rollout, and which testing requirements are in place.
Likewise, the Singapore government will also factor in the hygiene safety of airlines, potential layover airports, and how well immigration authorities understand COVID-19 protocols.
As Singapore opens up for tourism once again, there will be new and stringent requirements for hotels, tourist attractions, restaurants, and transportation. This includes installing temperature scanners, providing hygiene checkpoints (such as hand sanitizer stations and complimentary masks), and ensuring that proper social distancing requirements are followed.
As Singapore shifts away from its original Covid Zero strategy and plans to gradually reopen via the new Vaccinated Travel Lane, it is blazing a path for other countries to successfully kick start their own tourism after the pandemic.
