Closing VTLs now will not stop spread of Omicron: Covid taskforce

NOT only may barring visitors from countries with high Covid-19 cases affect Singapore's reputation, the more important question is "Does it help?", said Ong Ye Kung, co-chair of the multi-ministry taskforce on Covid-19.

"Because today it is Country A, tomorrow it is Country B, then Europe, then the US, and then it will be in the region... and before you know it, if we take that approach, we'll be back to closing down our borders," said the health minister.

"What will have happened is you've gone back two years. Whatever we have achieved, we will have to give up."

Ong was responding to a question posed to the taskforce during a press conference on Wednesday (Jan 5), on whether the taskforce was looking to review border and Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) measures.

He added that rules had already been tightened to contain the Omicron variant. For instance, passengers arriving on VTL flights are required to perform daily self-administered antigen rapid tests for 7 days.

"We have also reduced the quota for VTL so the numbers are also decreased," said Ong. Singapore also suspended the sale of new VTL flight tickets and tickets for those travelling into Singapore on the Singapore-Malaysia land VTL from Dec 23 until Jan 20.

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Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong further noted that it is important to understand the "significance of the connectivity" Singapore has with the rest of the world.

"Putting aside the economic importance of Singapore as a hub, it is also important for us to ensure that there is an opportunity for Singaporeans overseas to come back, as well as family members who are separated (to be) reunited.

"(Even if) we close all the VTLs, there will still be non-VTL connections between Singapore and other countries and Omicron will still be able to enter Singapore unless we impose a total lockdown and close our borders entirely," he said.

Indeed, the taskforce had expected "the Omicron surge" to hit Singapore in December but "as it turned out, I think the measures we put in place helped to buy us time", said co-chair and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong.

"That was the whole intention of the measures - not to stop Omicron, because we have also said it's not possible to stop Omicron from coming into our community."