When COVID hit, most countries in the Asia-Pacific region shut down tightly. After long delays, some of them have finally reopened – Thailand, Bali and the Philippines began allowing visitors in February, while Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam reopened in March. With the advent of April, even more countries in the area are beginning to allow visitors:
Malaysia
Malaysia will re-open its border to international travelers on April 1, 2022.
All fully-vaccinated travelers will be allowed to entry the country without undergoing quarantine, but will be required to take an RT-PCR test two days before departure and a rapid test (RTK) within 24 hours of arrival.
Travelers who are unvaccinated will need to quarantine for 5 days upon arrival. Following quarantine, they’ll also be required to follow the country’s COVID protocols, which currently include bans from some public places such as dine-in restaurants.
Myanmar
Myanmar will resume international commercial flights on April 17th. Visitors must be fully vaccinated, will be required to quarantine for a week, and undergo two PCR tests.
That being said, travel to Myanmar is discouraged. Both the CDC and the State Department have issued Level 4: Do Not Travel advisories for the country for its civil unrest and armed conflict (well, and for its COVID situation too, but that’s just about everywhere, so…)
New Zealand
New Zealand has been one of the most closed-up countries in the world throughout the COVID crisis. When they closed their borders in March,2020, even their own citizens who were overseas weren’t allowed to go back.
Even now, they are only sslloowwllyy reopening – effective April 12, it will reopen its borders to Australians. Just Australians. But the good news is that they’ll be able to enter without having to quarantine.
But what about us? Welp, there’s good news! On May 1, the country will be accessible to international tourists from visa-waiver countries – that would include citizens from the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Singapore…and the United States, among others.
Singapore
As of April 1, all fully vaccinated travelers and non-fully vaccinated children aged 12 and below will be able to enter Singapore without needing to apply for entry approvals beforehand.
Visitors must take a pre-departure test (Polymerase Chain Reaction [PCR], professionally-administered Antigen Rapid Test [ART] or a self-administered ART that is remotely supervised by an ART provider in Singapore) within two days before departing for Singapore and obtain a negative test result. No testing or quarantines will be required upon arrival.
South Korea
Effective April 1, fully vaccinated international tourists will be able to visit South Korea without a 7-day quarantine. The only exceptions are visitors from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Myanmar, who still must quarantine.
Also note that visitors will be required to have received a booster shot to bypass quarantine if more than 180 days have passed since their last recommended dose of a primary vaccine schedule (read: 180 days after your second shot or 180 days after the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine).
Visitors will also be required to apply for a QR code which will then be scanned at immigration, according to the South Korea tourism board. You can get that through South Korea’s Q-Code system by entering information such as your passport number, departure country, airline, phone number and vaccine records.
Feature Photo: Picryl
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