(TAN): Singapore could build “travel bubbles” with countries that have managed to bring COVID-19 under control, reports said.
The island city-state’s National Development Minister Lawrence Wong reportedly said Singapore will gradually eliminate restrictions on essential travel and “green lanes” would be established with countries where the pandemic has been controlled.
He reportedly added essential travel will comprise safety protocols such as testing travellers while they enter or leave Singapore.
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“And with these testing protocols in place we can have assurance that the traveller is free from infection,” he was quoted by Mothership as saying.
“And then essential travel can then resume, step by step, depending on the countries that we have established these green lanes or travel bubbles with,” News 18 quoted him as saying.
However, nonessential travel will continue to be out of bounds – mass travel, he said, “will take a lot longer to resume, not just in Singapore, but also internationally”, as per reports.
According to reports, Singapore is discussing the idea of establishing “travel bubbles” with other nations – discussions with some countries have progressed while with others they have just begun.
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Singapore said visitors arriving to the country will have to get a pre-departure polymerase chain reaction test, as per reports. Those who have been infected before will reportedly be given a serology test.
Further, visitors will have to download the TraceTogether application or carry a wearable dongle so that contact tracing can be done whenever required, reports said. TraceTogether, which was developed by a Singapore government agency earlier this year, allows for digital contact tracing of coronavirus using Bluetooth so the spread of COVID-19 can be contained.
Singapore has so far reported 33,860 cases of infection including 23 deaths, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.
