People watch fish in an aquarium at the River Safari wildlife park in Singapore on Sept 10, 2021. (Roslan Rahman / AFP)
Singapore has opened its borders to more countries for quarantine-free travel starting Oct 19, a move that several public health experts deem as timely as the city-state has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
The island nation, which is pursuing a strategy of living with COVID, has expanded its vaccinated travel lane, or VTL, program by allowing fully-vaccinated people from eight more countries to enter the island without quarantining provided they pass the COVID-19 tests.
Travelers from Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States can now enter Singapore. The VTL program began last month with Germany and Brunei, and South Korea will be added to the list next month.
Experts believe Singapore is capable of mitigating the risk of gradually opening its borders, even though it has been recording roughly 3,000 new COVID cases daily over the past several days.
As of Oct 16, 84 percent of Singapore’s estimated 5 million population has received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 85 percent has received at least one, according to Singapore’s health ministry.
Given Singapore’s high vaccination rate, “waiting longer to open vaccination travel lanes has little benefit and only significant downsides, as Singapore is a small country that is highly dependent on international trade and tourism,” said Hsu Li Yang, vice dean of global health and program leader of infectious diseases at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore.
Hsu said COVID-19 vaccines are “highly effective” at providing protection against severe disease and death. In the case of Singapore, he noted that infection rates are relatively low and that the country has succeeded to inoculate everyone who can or wish to be vaccinated at this point in time.
“Infection rates have been low in Singapore prior to September 2021, with the exception of the migrant worker population living in dormitories.
“We are experiencing a surge in cases at this time with the highly infectious Delta variant, (but) the proportion of severe cases and deaths has remained low,” he said.
Paul Anantharajah Tambyah, president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, said Singaporeans are now more familiar with the virus as they had to deal with it for the past two years. As such, they are more likely to take precautions such as wearing masks and practicing social distancing to reduce the risk of getting infected.
Tambyah said Singaporeans also have access to publicly-available data from most of the VTL countries, allowing them to identify and avoid high-risk areas.
Singapore’s government announced in June that it is drawing a roadmap of living with COVID-19. The plan aims to prepare Singaporeans to treat the virus as part of their daily lives, allowing them to live and work as usual without having to go into quarantines and lockdowns.
Attaining a high vaccination rate is a crucial part of this roadmap. The government has strongly encouraged and made vaccination accessible to all residents of Singapore.
In an address on Oct 9, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong reiterated the need to live with COVID-19, noting that this policy will also entail “updating” the Singaporeans’ mindsets.
“We should respect COVID-19, but we must not be paralyzed by fear,” he said, adding that thanks to vaccinations, COVID-19 has become “a treatable, mild disease for most of us”.
A month after the launch of the VTL, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, or CAAS, said 1,926 holders of vaccinated travel passes from Brunei and Germany have entered Singapore.
Only two of these nearly 2,000 travelers were detected to have been infected by the virus. Both were detected at the point of arrival.
CAAS said the experience and confidence gained from the VTL for Brunei and Germany has pushed authorities to extend the VTL to more countries.
“A zero-COVID policy can only be viable at a certain time. You have to decide when the restrictions that you enforced are no longer tenable,” said Nikolaus Osterrieder, dean of the Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong.
Osterrieder said that while this is an opportune time for Singapore to open up its borders, the city-state still needs to continue implementing measures like testing and allowing home quarantines.
