Singapore’s prime minister says he could reopen borders until the end of the year

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a television interview that he hoped Singapore would begin reopening its borders until the end of the year as more and more countries intensified their vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 infections.

The island country of Southeast Asia has largely banned the RecreationalArray, but has implemented commercial and official programs. It also analyses the mutual popularity of the vaccination certificate with other countries.

“I hope that if many countries can vaccinate at really large proportions of their population until the end of this year, we will be able to be confident and developed systems to securely open our foreign borders again,” Lee said in a statement. interview with the BBC aired on Sunday.

“Hopefully, by the end of this year or next, the doors can start to open, if it is sooner,” he said.

The city-state has dominated its COVID-19 with few new local instances and has implemented its vaccination program, after approving Pfizer-BioNTech and Modern vaccines.

As of 8 March, the country of 5. 7 million people had administered just over 611,000 doses of vaccines, a much slower rate than that of larger countries, but announced its goal of vaccinating everyone until the end of the year.

Lee said few local instances mean the city-state can take the time to convince its population to get vaccinated. Some doubt due to the low threat of infection and doubts about the imaginable side effects of rapidly evolving vaccines.

Singapore won the Chinese Sinovac Biotech vaccine before its approval. Lee said Singapore is comparing the vaccine and will use it if it meets the standards of protection and efficacy.

The city-state’s small open economy recorded its worst recession in 2020 due to the pandemic, after being hit last year by U. S. -China industry tensions.

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