Size of Travelling Party

One would be the group size. Every additional traveller adds to the risk permutation. There are declarations to be made prior to flight boarding, such as not diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last 14 days nor in close contact with a positive COVID-19 case in the last 7 days. This means minimising contacts in the last 2 weeks prior to travel, as this decreases the chance of contracting COVID-19 or becoming a close contact.

Entry Requirements

Country entry requirements change frequently. Singapore was elevated to the category of a high risk country by Germany in October 2021 in view of our rising cases then, which meant a digital entry registration has to be done no earlier than 3 days before arrival into Germany. While Germany has no pre-arrival test requirements, and no quarantine requirements if the traveller is vaccinated, we always had to check to ensure that there was no changes prior to departure. There is no point travelling if one has to be quarantined for days in the host country.

Test Requirements

Singapore requires all travellers to have a negative test prior to flight arrival into Singapore. Therefore, research also needs to be done to find out the test centres in Munich (the last city before we return to Singapore). The good thing was Singapore allowed for Antigen Rapid Tests (ART), in addition to Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Tests, as a valid test for pre-departure test prior to boarding for flight into Singapore. This means cheaper costs compared to PCR tests, and the turnaround time for ART was much shorter. Subsequently, there was also no requirement for Day 3 and 7 tests after arrival into Singapore, which also means lower costs and less troublesome to travel into Singapore from Germany on the VTL.

Contracting COVID-19

A major consideration is if one is diagnosed with COVID-19 prior, during and after the trip. If one is diagnosed with COVID-19 prior to the trip, that would mean cancellation or postponement of the flight, hotel and activity bookings. While there are inconveniences to schedules, or some monetary losses, the consolation is the traveller is still in Singapore, his home country. 

It is more troublesome and more expensive when the traveller contracts COVID-19 in the host country, as that means having to self-isolate, assuming symptoms are mild and manageable. This means finding a suitable accommodation to self-isolate. Even if the traveller recovers early, the next earliest flight is 14 days later, as Singapore Airlines only admits passengers with more than 14 days recovery from COVID-19.  This also means higher costs associated as traveller needs to pay for the additional days of accommodation. Most travel insurance only provides S$50 - S$100 of daily quarantine allowance, ranging from 7 - 14 days, so it will not cover fully for the additional accommodation costs.

Should the traveller be diagnosed with COVID-19 upon return from overseas, the associated medical costs would not be covered by the Singapore government. Therefore, this should be a major consideration in deciding to travel during the pandemic. 

Pandemic Situation in Host Country

Europe's fourth wave of infection started in November 2021. In Germany, there are strict mask (only medical grade such as FFP-2) policy for indoor venues and safe distancing measures of 1.5 - 2m. Germany has a 3G rule geimpft, genesen, getestet i.e. vaccinated, recovered, or tested for most of its public spaces, including hotels. For restaurants, the 2G (vaccinated or recovered) rule applies. 

Germany's vaccination rate stands at 68% of its total population, which is one of the lowest in Western Europe. Germany adjusts its COVID-19 rules according to 3 levels of hospitalisation incidence rates. During the last week of November, the hospitalisation rate moved up to Tier 2, thus 2G+ (vaccinated or recovered and negative test) rules apply. For more hard hit regions like Saxony, whereby the hospitalisation rate moved to Tier 3, contact restrictions apply. For travellers, it means hotels are not able to accept guests who travel for leisure. We encountered this while we were in Berlin and was about to travel to Dresden in the state of Saxony. Therefore, travellers need to accept that there needs to be last minute plan adjustments to the itinerary, such as moving to another state which has less stringent rules, or even be prepared for an early flight return should the host country be in a lock-down. Travellers should always monitor changes in home country requirements for inbound travel as well. 

With the 2G+ rule, it also meant that a negative ART result within 24 hours, in addition to proof of vaccination or recovery, has to be furnished for entry into public spaces such as museums. This occurred when we were in Munich in the last week of November. Therefore, this also adds to the costs and hassle if one wish to access these public spaces.

Stricter measures also mean if travellers contract COVID-19 during the travel, and self isolation is required, which type of accommodations would accept them? Prior to my travel, we checked with our hotel in our last city (Munich) who mentioned that should guests contract COVID-19, they could self isolate in the room. However by the time we were in Munich, the state of Bavaria which Munich is in, imposed stricter rules. The hotel no longer admits guests who are diagnosed with COVID-19. So if an international hotel chain does not permit positive cases to stay, there has to be consideration of accommodation should one contract COVID-19 during these times of travel.

Another disappointment was the cancellation of Christmas Markets. The timing of our trip was planned to coincide with the Christmas Markets. In view of the increased infection rates, the states with high incidence rates cancelled the Christmas Markets. This was a pity as many of the cities had set up beautiful, well decorated stalls in anticipation of the opening of the Christmas Markets which was cancelled last year. There were, however, states which still had Christmas Markets as planned. Although for us, it was too late to revisit Frankfurt or Hamburg as we had already covered them in the earlier part of our trip.

Compatibility of Vaccination Certificates

Notarised vaccination certificates are encouraged when travelling out of Singapore. While we did this, we realised the QR code was unreadable in Germany. We were informed we could get a compatible code at an apotheke (pharmacy). A Singaporean couple we bumped into in Germany told us they paid 5 Euros for each proof of vaccination jabs. If museum entries are important, then my suggestion is to convert the Singapore vaccination certificate into one that is readable by the German QR code reader, as I have had musuem entries refused in Berlin even though I showed a PDF format. Singapore announced in late November 2021 that a compatible European Union’s digital COVID certificate will be issued from 7 December 2021, which hopefully makes such show of proof easier for future travellers.