Bye ‘jinxed’ travel bubble, hello ‘air travel corridor’ as Singapore, Hong Kong well placed to reconsider plan: minister

Health minister Ong Ye Kung says the twice-postponed initiative will now go by a new name, with both economies ‘in a good position’ to look at it again

He adds that vaccinated Singaporeans may be able to undertake quarantine-free leisure travel to Europe and the US by the end of the year

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The travel corridor between Hong Kong and Singapore was indefinitely pushed back on May 26 when cases surged in the island nation. Photo: EPA

Published: 8:20pm, 1 Jul 2021Updated: 8:36pm, 1 Jul 2021

Vaccinated Singaporeans may be able to undertake quarantine-free leisure travel to Europe and the United States by the end of the year, according to the island nation’s health minister Ong Ye Kung, who says Hong Kong and Singapore are now “in a good position” to reconsider their twice-postponed travel bubble.

In a Thursday interview with The Straits Times, Ong said he shared the aspirations of residents who hoped to go on holiday by year-end to places where the Covid-19 pandemic was on a downtrend, though he added a caveat by saying “one thing I learned is that the situation changes every month”.

The minister’s remarks follow comments last week from the government’s Covid-19 task force – which Ong co-chairs – that outlined a blueprint for the country to live with the coronavirus becoming endemic.

Restrictions put in place in May to deal with a surge in cases are currently being scaled back, with the cap on dining in at restaurants expected to be increased from two to five people on July 12.

Ong did not specify when the travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore would begin, but noted that “both of us are more or less in a good position now and both of us are vaccinating”.