Singapore govt to quarantine returnees in five-star hotels

April 06, 2020 10:03

The Singapore government has decided to quarantine returning Singaporeans from overseas in five-star hotels for 14 days as a constructive way to support the local hotel industry in these difficult times. The government has blocked 7500 hotel rooms for quarantine purposes.With the occupancy at hotels plunging to unprecedented levels and many jobs at risk, the Singapore government may have found a novel way to help the hotel industry in Singapore.

Last week, the World Travel and Tourism Council reported that layoffs in global tourism is mounting at a rate of one million a day, estimating that up to 50 million jobs in the sector are at immediate risk and that the industry may possibly lose as much as USD 2.1 trillion by the end of the year.

Singapore reported its first case of COVID-19 on January 23. When it closed its borders to Chinese visitors at the end of the month, it had a total of 16 cases. The situation was very "manageable" right up to till the middle of March. Until then, the maximum number of cases on any given day was 13, and on most days, the number of new cases was in the low single-digit numbers.

However, numbers started spiking up from the middle of March. One of the reasons for the spike could be due to residents returning from other countries in March as countries around the world started to lockdown and close their borders.

Singapore is a densely packed island city on about 720 square kilometers of land and a population of 5.7 million people. Any virus can spread quite easily on the island. About 200,000 residents were expected to return to Singapore in March and April. -- ANI

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