Transport Minister: No Plans to Require Travellers to S’pore to be Vaccinated Before Entering

By
Ashley Seek
-

2020 was a sad year.

COVID-19 meant tighter restrictions like less eating out, smaller gatherings and extremely restrictive travel conditions.

This is why vaccines have been such a blessing recently, with the Pfizer-BioNTech one even having a 94% efficacy rate.

But this now begets a new question: do you need to be vaccinated before entering Singapore?

Transport Minister: No Plans to Require Travelers to S’pore to be Vaccinated Before Entering

Well, according to Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung, you don’t need to be.

It was reported on 1 March, Monday, that virus tests and stay-home-notices (SHN) would remain as the primary method.

More details on this will be elaborated during the debate on the Ministry’s budget.

Mr Ong thinks it is too early to decide if border measures can be eased for vaccinated individuals.

This includes whether there should be a differentiation between vaccines to implement border measures.

He states that there is currently not enough scientific data available to judge the extent of vaccines that can reduce the likelihood of someone passing the virus.

Working On Future Plans

However, this is just how things will carry on for now. 

Mr Ong noted that Singapore will put in place a system of digital vaccine certification that is tamper-proof and verifiable.

This will be done based on HealthCerts, developed by the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and the Ministry of Health.

Using some atas technology, the system helps to issue digital COVID-19 test results.

But since this concerns travellers from other countries, we can’t just implement this now.

Discussions with the International Civil Aviation Organisation and other countries are ongoing regarding recognition of these certifications.

Mr Ong also says that it’ll take some time.

Until then, vaccinated travellers will still follow the same measures as non-vaccinated ones.

Regardless, we shouldn’t need to be too kiasu about coming into contact with travellers, since they’ll still need to do tests.

Getting Ourselves Ready

The end goal is to still have as many people vaccinated as possible.

Needless to say, others would also be at ease to know if you’re vaccinated or not.

Health Minister Gan Kim Yong also explained that everyone who is vaccinated in Singapore will receive a vaccination card.

These contain personal particulars as well as the vaccine brand and date of vaccination and can be viewed on the SingPass or Healthhub app.

In a recent speech by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, he says that vaccinations were necessary to resume global travel.

This would require a global effort to bring about a more sustainable and inclusive recovery for all.

And with reports showing how long global herd immunity would take, we should all do our part.

Feature Image: saksorn kumjit/ Shutterstock.com

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Ashley Seek
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