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FINALLY, Singapore has decided to re-impose quarantine for all foreign arrivals. The Singapore government has started to freeze the sale of flight tickets and bus travel for vaccinated travel line (VTL) tourists from 23 December to 20 January. This step was taken to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Reporting from Bloomberg, this rule applies to 24 countries that have quarantine-free agreements with Singapore, including Indonesia, Australia, Canada, India and Germany. Singapore’s Ministry of Health will also temporarily reduce quotas and ticket sales for travel after 20 January 2022.
However, this freeze does not apply to passengers who already have a VTL flight ticket and meet all other requirements. They can still continue their journey under the quarantine-free travel scheme.
“This border move gives us time to study and understand the omicron variant, and to strengthen our defences, including increasing health care capacity, and increasing the number of people being vaccinated,” said Singapore’s Ministry of Health, quoted by Bloomberg, Wednesday (12/22).
Omicron has quickly become the dominant COVID-19 variant in many countries since it emerged about a month ago, accounting for more than 70% of cases in the United States being an Omicron variant. The variant has been found in Singapore, which has opened its borders to certain countries since October.
Singapore is no longer implementing the Zero COVID approach, which is currently still being pursued by countries such as China and Hong Kong. Singapore is the latest country in Southeast Asia to suspend reopening efforts in a bid to buy time for the more infectious Omicron variant.
Previously, Thailand also suspended the quarantine-free entry program this week. In Australia, medical experts are pressing for the re-imposition of wearing masks and social distancing. Meanwhile, New Zealand has suspended the gradual reopening of its borders until the end of February due to the threat of an Omicron variant.
After the announcement, Malaysian Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Malaysia would also freeze the sale of plane and bus tickets to Singapore from Thursday (12/23) to 20 January.
Like Singapore, Malaysia will reduce its ticket quota starting January 21 when sales resume. Local COVID-19 cases in Singapore have dropped from a daily high of more than 4,600 at the end of October to just 221 as of December 21. However, imported cases of COVID-19, which are dominated by the Omicron variant, are increasing to more than 50 every day.
Singapore detected its first local Omicron cluster at a gym. Singapore’s latest health ministry release reported 280 new cases, including 54 imported cases, but did not provide details on the variants of those cases.
Currently, the full-dose vaccinated population is 96% of those eligible and 87% of the population as a whole. More than a third of the population has received booster injections. Meanwhile, vaccination for people under 12 years old will start on December 27.
Following the Singapore government’s decision to freeze flight ticket sales, Garuda Indonesia President Director, Irfan Setiaputra said the policy would not have much effect. This is because the number of Garuda passengers flying to Singapore has not increased significantly since the airline served VTL flights.
“It has little effect because not many have flown. Quarantine rules when returning to their homeland are one of the causes of the low interest of Indonesian citizens to travel to Singapore. Not so much because they have to go back to quarantine for 10 days,” said Irfan.
For information, Garuda Indonesia has served the Indonesia-Singapore vaccinated travel lane (VTL) flight since November 29. VTL flights operate through the route number GA 836 and are served 6 times per week with the A330-300 fleet. [sources/photo special]
