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Asia Minute: Singapore’s Aggressive Vaccination Goals

A staff member checks vaccines at a Beijing factory built by Sinovac to produce a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine. Sinovac is one of 11 Chinese companies approved to carry out clinical trials of potential vaccines.
Wang Zhao
/
AFP via Getty Images
A staff member checks vaccines at a Beijing factory built by Sinovac to produce a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine. Sinovac is one of 11 Chinese companies approved to carry out clinical trials of potential vaccines.

Singapore will be easing some restrictions next month — but only if coronavirus infection numbers remain relatively stable — and only for those who are fully vaccinated.

The cabinet minister heading the government’s task force on COVID-19 laid out the strategy to parliament this week.

Lawrence Wong, who’s also the Finance Minister, said “if you want to go out to dine in a restaurant or work out in a gym, you have to be fully vaccinated.”

A negative test for the virus won’t be enough to get around restrictions.

This week, the government said about 56% of Singapore’s population is fully vaccinated.

The next target is to extend that to two-thirds of the population by a week from Monday.

Officials want to have 80% of the population fully vaccinated by September.

Wong says the goal is to move ahead with “progressive easing” of restrictions.

He expects less focus on the overall daily case numbers and more attention to what he calls “the much smaller number of infected persons who need supplementary oxygen or require intensive care.”

Another goal for September is increased international travel — the result of a strategy that is no longer aimed at completely eliminating the coronavirus — but reaching a point where residents can live with it.

Bill Dorman has been the news director at Hawaiʻi Public Radio since 2011.
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