Singapore launches measures in response to COVID-19 situation

Illustrative photo (Source: Xinhua/VNA)

Singapore (VNA) – Singaporean Multi-Ministry Taskforce has required workers to be fully vaccinated to return to the workplace, while the vaccine produced by China's Sinovac has been added to Singapore's COVID-19 national vaccination programme.

Accordingly, from January 1 in 2022, only employees who are fully vaccinated, or have recovered from COVID-19 within the past 270 days, can return to the workplace.

Unvaccinated employees will not be allowed to return to the workplace unless they have tested negative for COVID-19 before returning to the workplace, and they will need to pay for the costs of these tests.

These moves were announced by the taskforce on October 23. During the briefing, it also announced that the inclusion of the Sinovac-CoronaVac COVID-19 vaccine follows the Health Sciences Authority's (HSA) interim authorisation of the vaccine under the Pandemic Special Access Route.

The inclusion aims to allow the small minority of unvaccinated individuals, especially those who cannot take the mRNA vaccines due to medical conditions, to become fully vaccinated safely.

So far, the vaccination rate in Singapore has exceeded 90 percent of the eligible population./.

VNA