S’poreans Can Now Enter EU Countries Without Testing & Quarantine

2020-10-22 , 6:09 pm

You know how there’s that one popular kid who always invites lots of friends over for a party?

Initially, you feel sad because there weren’t enough invitations for you.

But suddenly, a bunch of people aren’t allowed to turn up. Seeing as you’re a pretty upstanding person, you now get invited too.

Why is this relevant?

Just replace the popular kid with the European Union (EU) and us as Singapore and you’ll get it soon.

Entering European Countries

Bloomberg recently reported that the EU has removed Canada, Tunisia and Georgia from the list of countries that could travel there.

And guess who got added to their good “white list” because our virus trends are good?

We, the citizens of Singapore.

We apparently don’t even need to be tested or quarantined!

However, this is also on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations on Wednesday (21 October) in Brussels were confidential.

But are we really that special?

Well, the EU’s white list used to have 11 countries on it in August.

However, they’ve recently decreased that number to nine countries, including Singapore now, as well.

So yes, we’re basically VIP status now.

The following eight are the other countries on this list:

It was also mentioned that the US will continue to be blacklisted.

Which you might think is sad, until you check the number of virus cases and deaths and realise they’re just being safe.

It’s like how you’re not going to invite a friend with a high fever, right?

Interesting to note, however, is that this comes at a time where there seems to be a comeback of cases in the EU.

The first list of safe countries initially sprang up on 30 June (1 July for us).

It was reviewed roughly bi-weekly, updating which country’s citizens are allowed into the EU.

While initially allowing 15 countries, it has scaled down to what it is today.

The last update in the first half of August, where Morocco got cut from the list.

Praying that we don’t screw this up and get cut from it too.

That’s not the only country we can choose, too.

A short time back, Singapore also announced a travel bubble between us and Hong Kong.

Much like travelling to the EU, we also don’t need to be quarantined for these trips.

This sounded fine and dandy until experts announced that doing so may incur roughly S$800 worth of COVID-19 tests.

Not to mention that price of air tickets being drastically raised too.

Travelling abroad in this pandemic is always a risk. As much as we may contract the virus, we also risk spreading it to them as well.

At the end of the day, it’s up to you (and your bank account).

Because remember: you can go to those European countries, but once you come back, you’d have to serve the SHN and tests, and you’ve to pay for them.