Singapore is due to open more "Vaccinated Travel
Lanes" to nine countries across Europe and North America, enabling
vaccinated travellers to visit Singapore without quarantine if they follow
testing protocols.
On 19 October, Singapore's VTL programme will expand to
include the UK, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, as well as
the US and Canada. It also will ease testing requirements for the programme
that same day. Singapore will add South Korea to the programme on 15 November.
All the countries that Singapore is adding to the VTL list are
currently classified as "Category 2" by Singapore, which carries a
seven-day quarantine requirement upon arrival.
Singapore began the VTL programme for both Germany and
Brunei on 8 September, allowing vaccinated visitors from those countries to
skip quarantine with negative Covid-19 tests within 48 hours before departure,
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 programme, 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 programme on 19 October, 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, travellers must arrive on approved VTL
flights, and Singapore Airlines announced it would operate these services from
Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, London, Milan, Paris, Rome, Los Angeles, New York,
San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver starting 19 October. VTL service from
Seoul will begin 16 November.
Singapore Airlines also announced that its low-cost
subsidiary Scoot will begin VTL flights from Berlin starting 20 October.
Singapore currently operates VTL services from Frankfurt, Munich and Bandar
Seri Begawan, Brunei.