China will allow outbound travel for its citizens starting 8 Jan 2023. The country has not opened up for 3 years and nobody knows what new variants it may bring. Needless to say, many nations imposed restrictions on Chinese travelers, except Singapore.
Come 8 Jan, we will still welcome visitors from China without them having to produce a negative test result.
According to a NUH expert, China’s reopening does not pose much of a threat to Singapore because most of us are vaccinated. We are already endemic. In his view, there is no need to set up testing facilities as it is expensive and “not so straightforward”.
“Testing won’t capture all the cases and many people will only turn Covid-19 positive a few days later anyway.”
The infectious diseases expert acknowledged that there may be a surge in cases and travelers may crowd our hospitals, but he thinks it can “be dealt with by giving them some instructions”. He said the chances of having an entirely new variant is low.
In lieu of its border reopening, China has hit back at countries that imposed restrictions on them, claiming it is “unfounded” and “discriminatory”. Ironically, it demands inbound travelers to test negative.
Do you think Singapore is doing the right thing? Will China remember us as the one who welcomed them when others did not? In the long term, do we stand to gain from this and will it be well worth it?
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