Singapore to Add Nine Countries to Quarantine-Free Program

Singapore in the coming weeks will open more “Vaccinated Travel Lanes” to nine countries, including the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, enabling vaccinated travelers from those countries to visit Singapore without quarantine if they follow testing protocols.

On Oct. 19, Singapore’s VTL program will expand to include the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. It also will ease testing requirements for the program that same day. Singapore will add South Korea to the program on Nov. 15. 

All the countries that Singapore is adding to the VTL list currently are classified as “Category 2” by Singapore, which carries a seven-day quarantine requirement upon arrival.

Singapore began the VTL program for both Germany and Brunei on Sept. 8, allowing vaccinated visitors from those countries to skip quarantine with negative Covid-19 tests within 48 hours upon arrival, upon arrival in Singapore’s Changi Airport and then again on the third and seventh day of their visit, if it lasted that long. Since then, Singapore has processed about 2,000 arrivals under the program, and only two tested positive upon arrival in Singapore. Both were “isolated and had no interaction with the community,” according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. No one tested positive on their Day 3 and Day 7 tests.

With that data, Singapore will eliminate the Day 3 and Day 7 testing requirement for the VTL program on Oct. 19, as the country’s Ministry of Health has determined “that the pre-departure test and on-arrival test provide sufficient safeguards for detecting and isolating imported Covid-19 cases.”

In order to qualify, travelers must arrive on approved VTL flights, and Singapore Airlines announced it would operate approved flights from Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, London, Milan, Paris and Rome starting Oct. 19. VTL service from Seoul on Singapore will begin Nov. 16.

Singapore Airlines also announced that its low-cost subsidiary Scoot will begin VTL flights from Berlin starting Oct. 20. Singapore currently operates VTL services from Frankfurt, Munich and Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.

Source: https://bit.ly/3atFsL1