Hong Kong and Singapore will launch their long-postponed travel bubble from May 26, allowing quarantine-free entry as both sides have made sufficient progress in containing their Covid-19 outbreaks to deem it safe enough for their residents. Announcing the arrangements on Monday, officials said Hong Kong would still require its residents, as an added safety precaution, to have received their second vaccine dose two weeks before departing for Singapore, which would not impose a similar rule on its own travellers. Those who are aged younger than 16 years, medically advised against being vaccinated, or using travel documents other than Hong Kong passports for departure will be exempted from the vaccination rule. Anyone currently living in Singapore and Hong Kong, regardless of nationality, will be eligible. Under the arrangement, one designated flight carrying 200 passengers will be allowed from each side daily. The frequency will be increased to two flights per day from each side beginning on June 10 if the coronavirus situation remains stable, but no transit passengers will be allowed. Cathay Pacific will make the first bubble flight from Hong Kong to Singapore at 9.10am on May 26, returning the next day at 2.45pm. Singapore Airlines will set off with its first 200 passengers to Hong Kong at 8.40am on May 26. Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble: here’s what you need to know The scheme will be suspended for two weeks if the seven-day moving average of unlinked Covid-19 cases in either city is more than five. The launch announcement came as Hong Kong confirmed four new Covid-19 cases, all imported, with one each from Kenya, Japan, the United States and India. The more virulent N501Y mutation was found in the first three of these infections. Hong Kong commerce chief Edward Yau Tang-wah said the administration and its Singaporean counterpart had kept the coronavirus under control and both sides had agreed to add health precautions when launching the plan. “Taking into account the latest situation, for example, the emergence of a mutated strain and a longer incubation period, we see the need to build additional safeguards and are taking the opportunity to encourage Hong Kong residents to complete two doses of vaccination before they travel.” Pre-departure screenings and on-arrival tests were also key health-control elements, Yau said. “In the case of Hong Kong, we have made provisions for the entire community to be vaccinated so as to protect themselves. The purpose of asking Hong Kong residents to get vaccinated prior to joining the [travel bubble] scheme is to protect their own health,” he said. Hongkongers can get tested at private clinics for HK$240 (US$31), while the screening price in Singapore is under S$200 (US$150), Yau added. In Singapore, transport minister Ong Ye Kung said Hong Kong had asked for the bubble to start in a month to get more residents vaccinated. Travellers on both sides are required to take a virus test 72 hours before departure and they must be screened again on arrival at the other airport. Designated lanes will be set up at Hong Kong airport for the post-arrival tests. Hong Kong travellers to Singapore must submit an arrival card and book a post-arrival virus test three days before travelling. After taking the test at the airport, travellers must go to their declared place of accommodation by private transport, taxis or hired cars, and stay there until receiving a negative result. Singapore permanent residents may quarantine in their own homes. Those entering Singapore must buy travel insurance, with a minimum coverage of S$30,000 for coronavirus-related medical treatment and hospitalisation costs, as part of a rule imposed by the city state’s government since January 31. Singapore travellers, meanwhile, will have to fill in an online health declaration form 48 hours before arrival in Hong Kong, and can only leave the airport and begin their itineraries after getting a negative test result. They also have to download the government’s “Leave Home Safe” mobile app for use during their stay. Ong said Singapore had not imposed any criteria for arriving travellers to be fully vaccinated. He said Hong Kong’s requirement for all departing residents to be fully vaccinated was probably because “they wanted an extra incentive for people to get vaccinated”. The original travel-corridor plan was put on ice last November amid a surge in Hong Kong cases. But the situation has eased, with 7.6 cases confirmed per day on average over the past week, although concerns remain over imported infections carrying the N501Y variant. Singapore has in recent months seen between zero and two local cases daily, but last week reported that 17 migrant workers who had recovered from a previous bout of Covid-19 had tested positive. The city state is now investigating if the 17 were reinfections or viral fragments, and has also banned non-residents from India amid a surge in coronavirus cases in that country. Respiratory medicine specialist Dr Leung Chi-chiu said given that local transmissions in Hong Kong and Singapore were relatively low, both cities had met the conditions for the travel bubble, as initially agreed upon last year. “The reason quarantine-free travel is allowed is because there’s mutual trust on both sides that their infection numbers are low, which means the risk of imported cases is similar on both ends,” he said. Quarantine-free return for Hongkongers anywhere on the mainland starts Thursday In Hong Kong, social-distancing curbs have been eased and people can go to the gym and dine at restaurants, with seating capacity capped at four per table, while the city has confirmed between one and 14 infections over the past week, most of them imported. As of Monday afternoon, the total infection tally stood at 11,740, with 209 related deaths. To date, about 11 per cent of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million residents have received one vaccine shot, while 5.7 per cent have got two doses since the city launched its inoculation drive in late February. The city allows anyone above the age of 16 to get vaccinated. Singapore, with a population of 5.7 million, has one of the fastest vaccination rates in the region, having administered 2.2 million doses. The city state has logged 60,966 infections with 30 deaths. The travel bubble will bring a much-needed boost to battered tourism industries in both cities. All but three of Hong Kong’s entry points have been closed for more than a year, and arrivals plunged 94 per cent in 2020. Arrivals to Singapore plummeted 85.7 per cent last year. Opening travel between the two hubs will also cast a lifeline to Cathay Pacific Airways and Singapore Airlines. Both have been hammered by the near-total freeze on global travel as they lack domestic markets to rely on. Hong Kong will also expand the “Return2HK scheme”, allowing residents to come back from anywhere in mainland China from this Thursday. The programme originally applied only to those coming from Guangdong province and Macau.