COMMENT: Singapore finally gets its Covid ‘happy day’
Tue, 26 April 2022, 10:16 am·3-min read
In what the nation’s health minister called a “happy day,” Singapore abandoned limits on group size, jettisoned social distancing and dropped curbs on the number of people who can work from offices. (Photo by Maverick Asio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
By Daniel Moss
(Bloomberg Opinion) — Singapore is shedding key pieces of its pandemic armour with relative alacrity. While officials have long been adamant the city-state would never have a U.K.-style “Freedom Day,” sweeping changes that take effect Tuesday get pretty close. It may just be a question of semantics.
In what the nation’s health minister called a “happy day,” Singapore abandoned limits on group size, jettisoned social distancing and dropped curbs on the number of people who can work from offices. Many venues will no longer require folks to check in with the government contract-tracing app. Vaccinated visitors can forgo pre-departure tests.
Reopening in Singapore happened gradually and then all at once. Only a month ago, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced a doubling of permitted group sizes to 10, ended compulsory masking outdoors and lifted restrictions on late-night sales of alcohol. At that time, Lee cautioned against expecting more big changes soon. So the latest news was as stunning as it was welcome. The government tends to eschew swift shifts in policy. But after two years of uber-caution that sometimes bordered on inertia, Singapore is sprinting toward a semblance of normal. Why? One reason may be that, despite earlier concerns, hospitals are coping with the disease. This development is partly thanks to very high vaccination rates, with more than 90% of eligible residents having received both shots. A surge in cases since the arrival of omicron has probably built up some degree of immunity, too. It's hard for me to think of a household that hasn’t had at least one infection, including my own.
But the most likely explanation is FOMO. Proud of its perch as a premier aviation hub, Singapore saw the resurgent travel in other advanced economies and feared getting left behind. Onerous rules on testing and group sizes — and the insistence on masking — didn't make for a great welcome mat. Before the pandemic, Singapore was an easy place to visit and its airport among the most user-friendly in the world. The costs of two year’s worth of Covid restrictions were outweighing benefits.
As a trade-dependent economy, Singapore cares deeply about its reputation abroad. After topping Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Ranking early last year, Singapore has slipped in part because of its slow travel reopening and the stringency of curbs. It was ranked 26th in March, behind Argentina, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, with Norway as No. 1. The carousel of lockdown-like episodes followed by small-scale reopenings also dented Singapore's image as an administrative state par excellence, a place that excelled in technocratic execution. At times, the country seemed to be floundering from one message to the next with great frequency. Will we remember only the successes of Singapore's Covid response and be encouraged to forget the fumbles?
It's important we not get too giddy with the pace of change. Singapore's leaders take care to remind us that another dangerous pathogen will surely arrive at some point. Nor has Covid disappeared. “These changes will bring us almost all the way to how things were,” Lee said in a Facebook post over the weekend. “I trust everyone will remain socially responsible — wearing masks when indoors, self-isolating if you feel unwell and watching out for one another.”
Officials have been making preparations for this new era. Red tape marking safe-distancing areas at taxi stands was gone from Orchard Road by Sunday. At Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, a popular chain of cafes, counter staff didn't bother to ask for my vaccination status or give me the bright purple sticker to show I was inoculated. As a practical matter, the post-Covid era has arrived.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Previously he was executive editor of Bloomberg News for global economics, and has led teams in Asia, Europe and North America.
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