Coronavirus: not just China, travellers also avoiding Singapore and Japan

People are calling off work and holiday plans over coronavirus fears, and hassles over travel bans and quarantine requirements

Some have taken to social media to plead with hotels and airlines to cancel trips to Singapore and Japan, which have the highest number of cases outside China

Reading Time:4 minutes

Tourists pose for photos at the Merlion Park in Singapore. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:30am, 9 Feb 2020Updated: 3:04pm, 25 Feb 2020

British banker Jamie Wong, 34, was planning to spend some time in his company’s Singapore office next week, as he was heading to the city state to attend his brother-in-law’s wedding.

But he was told he would have to work from home since his last port of call was Hong Kong. He also had to cancel a trip to Taiwan because the government there would have quarantined him for 14 days.

While Japan has no such orders for travellers from Hong Kong, Wong called off a trip to Tokyo scheduled for early March because of the rising cases of coronavirus infections there.

“I don’t really want to get infected,” said Wong, although he added he would be heading to Malaysia on a trip in April as planned. “Hopefully, the outbreak will die down by then.”

Wong is among an increasing number of travellers putting a halt to their holiday and work trips to Singapore and a few other Asian countries, due to the coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan and has since spread to more than 20 locations.

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