Covid-19 Border Measures (Sept '21)

Most of us have been aching to travel (especially now that year-end is coming up again) and air travel is restarting in some parts of the world. In most large countries, domestic travel has been going on as normal mostly. But for countries like Singapore, travel brings risk of outside infection into the country. Hence there have been stricter travel measures accross the border. Singapore has taken a risk-based pragmatic approach to also balance the demands of the economy and social ties, while allowing travel from countries who have been able to manage the pandemic well. Hence a country/region based classification has been practiced to see who can travel from where and with what restrictions.

For example, Category I has the least restrictions (just do an on-arrival PCR test and then go around as normal if its negative) and Category IV has the most (e.g. Pre-Departure PCR Test within 48 hours, on arrival PCR test, 14 day quarantine at dedicated facility, regular ART tests while in quarantine and end of 14-days PCR test before being allowed to go around as normal). See the full suite of measures in each Category here.

Below is a snapshot of the recently announced travel classification.

For the most recent updates and border measures visit: https://safetravel.ica.gov.sg/

Now, let's look at the recent Covid-19 statistics in countries in each of the categories.

Category I (Lowest Risk): Seems from the graph like the countries indeed have very low numbers and a non-increasing trend for a very long time.

Category II : The graph below for some Category II countries shows mostly low cases, but there does seem to be a sharp increasing trend in some countries (e.g. Australia, South Korea) classified here that maybe a bit worrying or riskier in time to come?

Category III: again the graph below for countries in this category, shows somewhat higher numbers and also increasing trend of recent Covid-19 cases in some countries

Category IV: all other countries fall under this category by default. But below are some of the graphs of countries that have a good potential to have a category upgrade soon? The number of cases in some of these countries are still high on absolute level (given the sheer size of the country), but the decreasing trend is quite evident (Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and UAE) and looks somewhat better in some cases than the above categories?

So maybe, just maybe, travel will open up to more countries soon. The situation is still evolving and continuous monitoring is still required. There are other factors like vaccination rate that also have to be considered in the decision making. Singapore is a hotspot for incoming travel for obvious reasons, but also is commendable its pragmatic risk based approach on sensitive yet balanced cross-border travel allowance policy.

Reference: Graphs are snapshots from Google Data that comes from Wikipedia, government health ministries, The New York Times, and other authoritative sources, as attributed. See more details here on the data: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9814707?p=cvd19_statistics&hl=en-SG&visit_id=637676928258637851-1305794314&rd=1