Travel arrangement: Singapore to closely watch COVID-19 situation in Malaysia

By Massita Ahmad

SINGAPORE, Oct 20  – Singapore continues to monitor the situation in Malaysia amidst a spike in the daily number of positive COVID-19 cases reported by its northern neighbour of late. 

The co-chairman of the republic’s Multi-ministry Taskforce on COVID-19, Lawrence Wong said the monitoring is not just based on the reported cases in Malaysia.

“We also look at the travellers coming from Malaysia to Singapore,” said Wong, who is also the Education Minister at the Taskforce’s virtual press conference here today.

The Taskforce was asked on what would be the threshold for Singapore to reconsider its current travel arrangement in allowing travellers from Malaysia to come in.

Wong noted that there are already safeguards in place for such travellers including testing them while they are in the republic.

“So based on this test, we will have actual data of what sort of prevalence rate Malaysia’s travellers has when they are in Singapore.

“Based on these experiences.. we will adjust our measures accordingly,” said Wong, adding that the cases from these travellers will reflect in the tally of Singapore imported cases.

“Our travel arrangement is not free for all sorts of travel arrangement. People do come in but there is a system of SHN (Stay-Home Notice) as well as testing in place to ensure that they are safe before they can come into the community,” assured Wong.

Singapore has shortened the SHN duration to seven days from 14 days for travellers from six low-risk countries and regions, including Malaysia from Sept 1, 2020.

Travellers from these countries and regions would be allowed to serve the seven-day SHN at their place of residence.

However, Singapore had required all travellers with a recent travel history to Sabah, to serve a 14-day SHN at dedicated SHN facilities from Oct 14, 2020.

“This is following an increase in cases in Sabah recently,” said the Taskforce, in a statement issued on  Oct 12.

-- BERNAMA