This bubble which has been planned and postponed has burst. It’s between Singapore and Hong Kong. Do not think too much. It’s travel bubble yeah. There are no other bubbles between Singapore and Hong Kong. Definitely nothing about the property markets too. The major reason is because of a difference in the Covid-19 strategies.
Singapore has started to reopen its international borders on the premise that Covid-19 numbers are to be managed. Hong Kong meanwhile prefers to keep those numbers extremely low or none if possible. With both having a totally different thinking about how best to handle Covid-19, they have decided not to continue speaking about this travel bubble.
Article in todayonline.com Singapore Ministry of Transport (MOT) on Thursday said that (Aug 19) Transport Minister S Iswaran and his Hong Kong counterpart Edward Yau have agreed not to pursue further discussions on the air travel bubble.
This travel bubble would have allowed people to travel between the two cities without serving quarantine, had been postponed twice. It was first postponed in November last year delayed due to a rise in the number of coronavirus cases in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong authorities said this about the bubble plan. “All along, it was premised upon similar anti-epidemic strategies adopted by the two places, aiming to reduce local caseloads to a minimum. With Singapore currently moving towards a new strategy of building a ‘Covid-resilient’ nation, the basic premises that underpin the air travel bubble have changed.” Please do read the full article here: Article in todayonline.com
Travel Bubbles are important as not all are at the same stage for Covid-19
Today, on average, 32% of the world population has received at least 1 dose of Covid-19 vaccination jab. 24% are fully vaccinated. However, in low income nations, this number falls to just 1.3%. This is a sad reality and hopefully the rich and advanced nations can start doing more because no one is safe until everyone is safe. All the info quoted is from ourworldindata.org
Thus, for countries where Covid-19 is under control or their vaccination numbers are already reaching over 50% fully vaccinations, then economy becomes that next important stage. When the economy is unhealthy, it will affect livelihoods of the people and soon this will start to impact lives as well because no income means no food on the table for many.
Some of these countries or regions could choose to start a travel bubble. This will help to jumpstart the economy as more people could travel and thus consumption of goods and services will restart. In the European Union for example, they are already travelling freely between nations. In fact, the number of spectators in the stadium for football matches are back to normal for some.
ASEAN or ASIA is a little far away from this ‘reopening fully’ stage but we can definitely continue to plan following the vaccination progress. Let’s see when we can at least travel within ASEAN again. Please do your best yeah, Bangkok. See you next Songkran… 2022.
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