PM Lee Hopes Australia & New Zealand Would Open Borders for S’pore Since We’ve Opened for Them

Unrequited love is something most of us are familiar with.

You have a crush on someone in school, and after a year of backing out, you finally go up to them and confess how you feel.

Then they say something like “Who are you?”, which is always hard to take, because knowing someone is a pretty important first step in dating.

Sadly, you love them, but the affection is one-sided.

Now, we’re seeing that this love doesn’t just exist in human relationships, but among countries during a pandemic too.

PM Lee Hopes Australia & New Zealand Would Open Borders for S’pore Since We’ve Opened for Them

Unless you’ve sunk into your couch for so long that you’ve actually become one with it, you’re probably aware that we’ve partially opened our borders.

In addition to green lane agreements with a few countries, we’ve allowed visitors from Vietnam, Brunei, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Australia.

Visitors from these countries only have to take a Covid-19 swab test upon arrival, instead of serving a long, expensive quarantine.

The only country that wants Singaporeans to come to them, however, is Hong Kong.

Singaporeans have been clamouring for these countries to open up to us for months, and now the prime minister has joined in.

On Saturday (14 Nov), PM Lee called upon Australia and New Zealand to work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to ease border restrictions.

Speaking at separate virtual summits involving ASEAN and the two countries, he explained that this would facilitate the resumption of economic activity.

More importantly, it would facilitate the resumption of vacations abroad.

At the second ASEAN-Australia Biennial Summit, PM Lee said he hopes that Australia will ease its own border restrictions “in good time”.

Similarly, at the ASEAN-New Zealand Leaders Summit, the prime minister said both sides should gradually and safely lift current travel restrictions.

This, he said, would signal to the world that they are open for business.

“(Singapore) looks forward to New Zealand similarly lifting its restrictions on cross border travel as soon as it is ready to do so,” he said.

PM Lee added that Singapore, Australia and New Zealand share the same views on “vaccine multilateralism”, meaning we’re willing to work together to ensure other countries get the vaccine instead of restricting access to citizens.

So, then, why is this a one-sided love story?

Not As Equipped to Handle Imported Cases

Professor Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases expert from the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, told CNA that Singapore is able to open up to some countries because we have mask-wearing and measures in place to curb transmission, in addition to few Covid-19 cases.

This may not be the case with other low-risk countries.

“It seems other countries fear their current capacities to manage an imported case and are very risk averse”, he said.

“At this stage I believe they fear uncontrolled transmission should even one case appear. We feel that the very small risk is worth the enormous benefits of loosening border restrictions with very low risk countries”, he added.

So, we might only be able to holiday in these countries once they feel adequately equipped to manage imported cases.

Until then, our love will not be reciprocated.

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