Singapore's National Day Parade celebrations at the Marina Bay floating platform in 2018. The announcement came as Singapore reverted to stricter preventive measures against the pandemic, which are scheduled to last until August 18, after the National Day (August 9).
The heartland fireworks and Red Lions displays previously announced to be held on August 7 and 8 will be cancelled. The NDP rehearsal previously planned for July 24 and the preview on July 31 have also been postponed, said Mindef.
The postponement of the event comes after several petitions emerged online calling for the parade’s cancellation out of concern that proceeding with the parade could lead to a further spread of COVID-19. One petition on Change.org calling for the cancellation of NDP had gathered more than 36,000 signatures.
Last month, Mindef announced that the parade will return to The Float@Marina Bay on August 9 on a smaller scale compared with pre-pandemic years. There would be fewer spectators and participants than usual and all of them must also be fully vaccinated.
A total of 162 new locally transmitted COVID-19 infections were reported in Singapore on July 22, including 52 new infections not linked to previous cases. The Southeast Asian country has so far confirmed 63,791 cases./.
VNA
