Schools in Singapore asked parents to declare overseas holiday plans as authorit...
SINGAPORE - Schools in Singapore asked parents to declare overseas holiday plans as authorities screened travelers at air, land and sea checkpoints on Friday, to combat the spread of a deadly flu virus that has revived memories of the SARS pandemic in 2003.
However, the current outbreak does not appear as deadly as SARS, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in his annual Lunar New Year message. The pandemic killed 33 people in Singapore, one of the worst-hit countries outside China. Staff at Singapore’s National University Hospital were handing out face masks and taking the temperature of arriving visitors, when Reuters visited early on Friday.
“Those who remember the SARS period knew how dreadful it was back then, people in the lifts cover their nose and passengers in the train sit away from me,” said Facebook user Joyce Koh.This time round, Singapore’s first reported sufferer was a 66-year-old staying with his family at the Shangri-La’s glitzy Rasa Sentosa Resort & Spa, on a beach strip dotted with tourist attractions.
Chinese nationals were nearly a fifth of all 18.5 million visitors to Singapore in 2018, by far the largest group, the latest official data shows.
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