May 1, 2021. Covid 19 community cases. What Happened?

[Wd40]

Incidentally, mandatory SHN hotel quarantine has now been increased from 14 to 21 days from most countries.

(only a handfuld of exceptions: Oz, NZ, China, HK, Macau, Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, Fiji)

Yikes.

Being locked inside a hotel room for 3 weeks will surely eliminate most types of business travel & even some types of repatriation.

And who knows how long the outright ban on work pass arrivals from India, Bangladesh, Pak, Sri Lanka, Nepal will last. Another 6 months?

Interestingly, vaccination status seems to have no effect on the restrictions.

I think rightfully any kind of unnecessary travel should be discouraged, until the pandemic is over everywhere, including the 3rd world countries. The only people who should be moving between countries are those that are like moving back to their base location/joining their family etc.

Everyone else should be barred from travelling. It is insane, the number of people who are trying to game the system looking to enter/exit Singapore. Mostly very rich expats who can afford travelling and staying in a 3rd country.

This is almost like a war like situation. Imagine there is a war and are you going to still expect travel as normal?

[Lisafuller]

What a difference in a few weeks. For many months Singapore was controlling community cases. The daily cases were imported ones coming through immigration and put into quarantine.


Now new restrictions are coming into place. Where does everyone see this going? Everyone has been masking and availing themselves of vaccine. What more is there to be done?

Does not bode well for travel and travel bubbles. Staycations till 2023?

A real pity. Now we have to gather in groups of 5, and my boxing studio is closing for the month so I’ll need to find another form of exercise I enjoy. I’m trying to keep positive.

[Lisafuller]

Incidentally, mandatory SHN hotel quarantine has now been increased from 14 to 21 days from most countries.

(only a handfuld of exceptions: Oz, NZ, China, HK, Macau, Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam, Fiji)

Yikes.

Being locked inside a hotel room for 3 weeks will surely eliminate most types of business travel & even some types of repatriation.

And who knows how long the outright ban on work pass arrivals from India, Bangladesh, Pak, Sri Lanka, Nepal will last. Another 6 months?

Interestingly, vaccination status seems to have no effect on the restrictions.

I think rightfully any kind of unnecessary travel should be discouraged, until the pandemic is over everywhere, including the 3rd world countries. The only people who should be moving between countries are those that are like moving back to their base location/joining their family etc.

Everyone else should be barred from travelling. It is insane, the number of people who are trying to game the system looking to enter/exit Singapore. Mostly very rich expats who can afford travelling and staying in a 3rd country.

This is almost like a war like situation. Imagine there is a war and are you going to still expect travel as normal?

Agree. The only way we are going to see an end to imported cases is if we all stop traveling. If everyone stayed home, got vaccinated, and waited a couple weeks, I’m pretty sure we would see life go back to normal.

[BigginHill]

I think rightfully any kind of unnecessary travel should be discouraged, until the pandemic is over everywhere, including the 3rd world countries.

All well & good.

I'm concerned about 'necessary' travel though.

Three weeks is "don't return" territory - essential travel gets deferred too.

[PNGMK]

There is a LOT of push and pull now between those who consider themselves essential and the MOM. Reality is I cannot commission and mobilize a system onto an offshore rig on a WFH basis. I have to be able to touch the gear.

I am bloody annoyed the Indian variant got into Singapore.

[BigginHill]

A friend of mine runs an offshore business here - apparently ships crew rostering w/multinational crews have basically become near-impossible with these added restrictions.

In a way, it's worse than the period of March-June 2020 where we effectively banned Entry Approvals for work pass holders - this time the border restrictions also affects PR's & citizens.

It's also pretty clear, that even a fully vaccinated population won't make much of a difference on local restrictions with our current risk elimination strategy. At best, vaccines will "just" protect the handful of leaked quarantine cases & limit the clusters.

[ProvenPracticalFlexible]

A friend of mine runs an offshore business here - apparently ships crew rostering w/multinational crews have basically become near-impossible with these added restrictions.

Indeed, somehow people seem to forget that there still need to be those poor souls who provide the logistics and deliveries of the food and goods ordered online. It's not just the local grabfood or deliveroo, whom people love to complain how their whole day was ruined, when food delivery came 10 minute late. It's also the global shipping and manufacturing that needs to provide stuff to Singaporeans, not much food here to feed the country, a few community gardens will hardly provide enough. Should they be locked up in their ships or farms or factories until the end of Covid that they don't cause us inconvenience.

Everybody stays home and let's close the borders works only if you live in farm or other plot of land where you are living from the land, forest and sea/lakes. But in cities that is pretty much impossible.

[BigginHill]

Couldn't have said it better, PPF.

[the observer]

ICA officer positive.
Changi airport cleaner tested positive.
SHN hotel cleaner tested positive.

Something that worked well in the past isn’t doing quite so now. New variant is indeed more … virulent.



Now this.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/si ... s-14764108

[BigginHill]

So yet again, EP holders can no longer enter SG?

[the observer]

So yet again, EP holders can no longer enter SG?

A select few countries can.

“Higher-risk countries and regions refer to all places except Australia, Brunei, mainland China, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. “

[BigginHill]

Looks like there's a loophole - we reskill as foreign domestic workers & gain access!

Migrant workers here to work as domestic workers will be allowed entry as approved, except for some with planned arrivals before June 7 who will be rescheduled to arrive at another date.

[Max Headroom]

In spite of the variants and other potential dangers lurking, I think Singapore is aware that it has to go ahead with opening up going forward. Of course the country is one of very few that did a really good job at managing the pandemic. Case numbers are very low, as are fatalities.

It can and will leverage this further.

With this in mind, the gahmen, in my view, will continue proactively managing this thing, micromanaging if and when required. To wit, they've just reversed their catch-all decision to close all gyms, based on the latest data.

This kind of hands-on granular approach is the only way to make any kind progress me thinks.

Ditto recreational travel. Current restrictions are on the verge of being eased, albeit in baby-steps, undoubtedly. And then only for those that are vaccinated. In addition, clearly, the Covid-19 passport will be a prerequisite.

So yeah, certainly for the second half of the year and beyond, my glass is half-full.

[PNGMK]

I am not so optimistic. The very slow vaccine rollout if annoying. The inability to use your status as vaccinated is annoying. The real risk to my job with a CB is annoying.

[Jgrif96229]

Vietnam is now doing 21 day quarantine.