Quarantine-free travel with Indonesia, India from Nov 29

Singapore is expanding quarantine-free travel to visitors from five more countries and will ease up on several domestic restrictions in the coming weeks, including offering dining concessions for vaccinated household members at hawker centres.

Further easing can be expected if the weekly Covid-19 infection growth rate falls below one, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung yesterday. The rate has ranged between 0.8 and one in the past week.

Mr Ong added that the "calibrated relaxation" of Singapore's safe management restrictions will lead to more social interaction, and therefore higher virus transmission rates and infection numbers in the days and weeks to come.

"While this is happening, we are also administering more booster shots, and more people are also recovering safely from infection and becoming resilient to the virus," he said at a press conference by the multi-ministry task force tackling the pandemic.

"So this counteracts against higher social interactions and infections, and we hope that overall, the situation can remain in check."

From Nov 29, Singapore will open vaccinated travel lanes (VTLs) with India and Indonesia, while VTLs with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will follow suit from Dec 6.

All five countries, except Indonesia, have opened their borders to vaccinated travellers from here.

Locally, dining concessions will be extended to hawker centres and coffee shops to allow fully vaccinated household members to eat out in groups of up to five, starting from the end of this month.

Diners will need to check in via SafeEntry.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said yesterday that the authorities are working with operators to implement vaccination-differentiated measures at hawker centres and coffee shops.

"We expect the first group of hawker centres to put in place access control and checking systems before the end of November," the ministry added. "The remaining hawker centres should then be able to follow soon after."

MOH is also expanding the list of documents deemed to be acceptable proof of a person's place of residence. The list will now include approved government digital apps such as myICA and SGWorkPass, as well as the NRIC and Singpass.

Separately, a pilot scheme has been rolled out to ease capacity limits and zoning requirements for specific events, said Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong.

These include selected Mice (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) events, spectator sports and live performances. All participants must be fully vaccinated and take a Covid-19 test before being allowed in.

Events that are part of this pilot include the two-day Milken Institute Asia Summit, which started yesterday, and the Bloomberg New Economy Forum which starts today. It also includes Mandopop star JJ Lin's two-day live concert on Nov 27 and 28, and a One Championship martial arts event to take place in the coming months.

Mr Ong said stricter vaccination-differentiated measures will hopefully keep the number of unvaccinated infected individuals low and the pressure off hospitals.

Over time, boosters and natural infections will help increase population immunity. "When that happens, the week-on-week (infection growth) ratio will fall below one again, and this will give scope to implement further relaxation of restrictions," he said.

Mr Ong reiterated that Singapore does not take a "big bang approach", but rather, works to constantly suppress virus transmission. "And this will be a careful and deliberate process - applying brakes to our bicycle that's going downhill, and reach an equilibrium and reach our destination safely," he added.