Minister of Health Ong Ye Kung said that with the expected increase in travel due to the year-end holidays, the number of Covid cases is expected to spike.
He also warned that there will be potentially new variants emerging, as he used the Covid situation in China as an example.
Ong was speaking at an event by the Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC) at Nanyang Junior College on Sunday.
He said that Covid cases might increase due to the end-of-year travel but added that it isn’t something that Singapore hasn’t experienced before.
He added that the government will continue to monitor the developments overseas, citing Beijing’s Covid situation.
He said that more and more people are infected in China, and given their huge population and density, there will be new variants of concern.
On Singapore, he said that our direction has been very clear for the past year, and that we would open up further whenever possible.
He said that “we are left with few restrictions and life has pretty much returned to normal, but we should take another step forward where we can.”