China’s reopening of borders will definitely lead to a wave of their travelers coming to Singapore. They have been locked down for so long, and Chinese travelers have always visited Singapore pre-COVID. About 3.6 million Chinese residents visited Singapore in 2019, making up nearly 19 per cent of visitor arrivals that year, the largest contributor of tourists.

Thinking that Singaporeans will be afraid, the government has been trying to assure us that it wouldn’t affect us here. They say that the virus strains in China are already present in Singapore. They also managed to get the president of the International Society of Infectious Diseases, Paul Tambyah, to make a statement about how we won’t be badly affected.

“It is unlikely that there will be a spike in cases in Singapore related to visitor arrivals from China.”

Paul Tambyah

He also said that if there are new variant, it is likely to be less serious.

While we may not trust that the government will be prepared for any unexpected scenario, for example, when we opened our borders to South Asian nations and a sudden wave of COVID infections arrived, we should be glad that the government is finally listening to our resident infectious disease expert. (Despite not letting him lead our COVID taskforce for the past 3 years).

Hopefully it remains true that Singapore is prepared to deal with older variants, and that even if they have new variants it will be mild.

Prof Tambyah also said that even if Chinese travelers come to Singapore to take an mRNA vaccine, Singapore also has enough vaccines for its residents. What do you think? Are we prepared for a new influx of tourists?