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What country do you live in and can you leave your country easily??

icy_jade

Ideal_Rock
Joined
May 1, 2009
Messages
6,131
We also have closed borders in Singapore, we have a green list who can come in but the list is something like China, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei and Taiwan. Most of these will not let their citizens out, and won't let anyone else in either.

We have a young child, who is currently ineligible for vaccination so I can not see us going anywhere till that changes. This is possibly the bigger problem as I think there will be travel corridors long before we manage to get her vaccinated.

Actually you can leave the country if you are a Singaporean. You can return if you have a flight too. If you are on work permit (ie non-Singaporean) though, you need MOM (ministry of manpower) approval to return to Singapore so you may not be able to return if MOM does not approve.

Regardless of nationality, all have to serve mandatory quarantine of 2/3 weeks upon return unless you are from one of those countries on the list. Quarantine is not free so that’s a deterrent for travel as well.

So I do feel quite free to travel but can’t imagine why I would want to.
 

Daisys and Diamonds

Super_Ideal_Rock
Joined
Apr 30, 2019
Messages
22,397
There is an exclusion clause in all travel insurance against major pandemics. The moment the world health organisation declared covid a pandemic the travel insurers stopped paying for anything covid related (in my personal experience it was backdated too, even if you'd incurred the losses before covid was declared a pandemic it didn't matter). I think this happened in March last year so definitely not covered now :lol-2: .

You can buy special covid insurance against certain circumstances -- like getting covid while in hotel quarantine. But you'd have to buy this additional insurance.

It must have been rather unfortunate for the people who got caught up on the cusp of it

i think its just saver tp stay home right now
 

qubitasaurus

Brilliant_Rock
Premium
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Messages
1,653
Actually you can leave the country if you are a Singaporean. You can return if you have a flight too. If you are on work permit (ie non-Singaporean) though, you need MOM (ministry of manpower) approval to return to Singapore so you may not be able to return if MOM does not approve.

Regardless of nationality, all have to serve mandatory quarantine of 2/3 weeks upon return unless you are from one of those countries on the list. Quarantine is not free so that’s a deterrent for travel as well.

So I do feel quite free to travel but can’t imagine why I would want to.

Perhaps it is because none of us are singaporean then, we have/are being forced to let go of 4 out of 6 staff who traveled recently (the 4 who got terminated traveled to australia, america, europe and UK. The two who managed to make it back went to China). We didn't really get any choice in the matter. I am about to lose a 5th person. Technically I lost him a few weeks ago, but I had hoped we'd get him back. They all had very good reasons for going. But it is making things extra difficult as they can no longer be replaced; due to the new measures against hiring anyone from abroad (with exception of (super short) shortlist of inbound countries, which is very hard to hit).

I am watching the jobs slowly get shifted offshore, to 'contractors overseas' as they can't be filled locally for love or money. I now have an insane zoom schedule in which people are trying to find mutually compatible time zones across Asia, US and Europe in almost every call. It is only just beginning (indeed there are now discussions about where to open the new overseas offices, to accelerate the hiring overseas), so I guess I should get used to it. It is making things very tiring, and much more complex though so it is quite hard to embrace this change. I also feel bad for the people overseas, often they get handed something quite difficult to do, and far less suport then they otherwise would have gotten.
 

icy_jade

Ideal_Rock
Joined
May 1, 2009
Messages
6,131
Perhaps it is because none of us are singaporean then, we have/are being forced to let go of 4 out of 6 staff who traveled recently (the 4 who got terminated traveled to australia, america, europe and UK. The two who managed to make it back went to China). We didn't really get any choice in the matter. I am about to lose a 5th person.

I think everyone who travels out of Singapore gets the same advisory - you can leave but you may not be able to return.

Am surprised by the Australia one... I can understand US and UK but would have thought Australia was ok. Also haven’t heard that AU is on the more restricted list of countries.

Anyway I think the country is now on edge given the recent clusters. I’ll be surprised if the government is letting as many people back in given the situation.
 

qubitasaurus

Brilliant_Rock
Premium
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Messages
1,653
I think everyone who travels out of Singapore gets the same advisory - you can leave but you may not be able to return.

Am surprised by the Australia one... I can understand US and UK but would have thought Australia was ok. Also haven’t heard that AU is on the more restricted list of countries.

Anyway I think the country is now on edge given the recent clusters. I’ll be surprised if the government is letting as many people back in given the situation.

Lol, paradoxically I think the one who went to Australia was actually a Singaporean, and worried about getting locked out of Australia (he had a lab there and needed to reach it before Australia shut its borders). Most made some kind of screwed up choice, because they just didn't have a better option available. Same possibly could be said for the government at the moment, which will make a hard choice if it wants to keep the numbers down. Of course we support all of them, it's just made things excessively complicated.
 

Daisys and Diamonds

Super_Ideal_Rock
Joined
Apr 30, 2019
Messages
22,397
As of May 9, about 1.8 million people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 1.2 million of them receiving their second dose. So slightly over 20% are fully vaccinated?

That is so much better than NZ or Australia
 
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