CDC Heightens Travel Alert For Singapore, Hong Kong

SINGAPORE – As a wave of Delta variant outbreaks imperils Singapore and Hong Kong, the US government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised its health warnings for people who plan to travel to the 2 rival Asian financial hubs, reported the Financial Times on Tuesday afternoon (28 September, SGT).

In particular, CDC heightened its COVID warning for Singapore to “high” from “moderate” previously. The government agency said all “all travellers” going to the city-state could be at risk of getting infected and spreading COVID-19 variants. It also recommended that unvaccinated people should refrain from nonessential travel to Singapore.

Although Singapore has one of the world’s highest vaccination rates with over 82 percent of its population now fully inoculated, it is attempting to shift its strategy from imposing strict restrictions to stop the spread of COVID-19 to living with coronavirus and deeming it as endemic.

This policy shift has resulted in a surge in the number of infected individuals, with Singapore witnessing several days of record new cases during the prior week. Consequently, the government re-introduced stringent measures, including the return of work-from-home as the default work arrangement.

Meanwhile, CDC raised the warning for Hong Kong from a “low” to a “moderate” level of risk. Compared to Singapore, the Chinese territory continues to impose one of the most stringent COVID regulations in the world, and there had been zero local infections for over 30 days.

As for the United States, it is currently experiencing a nationwide outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant. On Sunday, the country recorded more than 34,000 new cases, and there were about 2,000 daily fatalities during the previous week.