S'pore drops covid testing requirements for travellers
Singapore will abandon its Vaccinated Travel Lane system and welcome fully-vaccinated visitors from anywhere in the world, without special entry approval in the form of the Vaccinated Travel Pass, from Friday April 1.
On-arrival testing and subsequent isolation will also end, and pre-departure testing is also on the way out as the country resets to a largely pre-pandemic travel experience.
“We will continue to monitor the local and global Covid-19 situations and consider removing the pre-departure test requirement in the coming weeks,” the country’s Ministry of Health announced this afternoon.
Quotas on the number of daily arrivals will be dropped, as will dedicated VTL flights and the need to have been in VTL countries for the previous seven days.
In a televised address on Thursday morning, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said having “reached a major milestone” in its Covid-19 journey, the country could now relax most restrictions to provide a much-needed boost to businesses, particularly the tourism sector, and help Singapore reclaim its position as a business and aviation hub.
“Earlier, we were cautious because of uncertainty over Omicron’s impact,” Lee said. “Taking all things into consideration, we believe that we are now ready to take a decisive step forward towards living with Covid-19.”
Part of this means visitors and locals like can also look forward to no longer having to wear masks outdoors, being able to gather in groups of up to 10 and the removal of the 10.30pm limit on selling and drinking alcohol.
Under the new Vaccinated Travel Framework (yes, the Singaporean government loves bestowing official names on things), the island-state will shift its focus to vaccinated travellers regardless of their country of origin, with the exception of what Finance Minister Lawrence Wong has previously described as “a very small group of countries which may have variants of concern – then we will have to restrict travel from that particular group.”
“Instead of having vaccinated travel lanes with selected countries that we think are low risk, we should actually allow (quarantine-free) travel for vaccinated travellers or fully-vaccinated travellers, from all countries,” Health Minister Ong Ye Kung forecast last month.
Today’s news bodes well for Singapore Airlines, whose extensive worldwide network is built around connecting flights at Changi, and it also presages the resumption of Qantas’ flagship Sydney-Singapore-London route, which currently relies on Darwin as a temporary stopover but will return to Singapore from June 19 featuring the Airbus A380 superjumbo.
As previously reported, part of Singapore’s route back to pre-Covid prosperity and tourist appeal will include the return of the Formula 1 GP to the twisty Marina Bay Sands street circuit from September 30 to October 2.
-B
