singapore there is currently no evidence to suggest that symptoms associated with the omicron variant of covid19 are different or more severe than those of other variants or that current vaccines and therapeutics would be ineffective against the new variant according to a news report citing singapores ministry of health mohchannel news asia reported that the ministry said two more people infected with omicron variant travelled through singapore to malaysia and australiamore data and further studies on omicron are needed the moh said adding that it is expecting to see more such cases being reported globally in the coming weeksshould the omicron variant be more transmissible than delta and become the globally dominant variant over time it is a matter of time before it establishes itself in singapore the moh said on fridaybut the additional measures will help to buy time to learn more about dealing with omicron and to continue with our booster programme to strengthen our collective resilience for better protection against this new variantmoh said it might need to introduce or adjust its measures at short notice in response to the fluid situationon omicron infections transmitting through singapores changi airport moh said the first case travelled from johannesburg on november 27 on a singapore airlines flight and arrived here the same day for his transit flightthe passenger then travelled to sydney on another singapore airlines flight arriving on november 28the new south wales ministry of health in australia on friday confirmed he was a positive case the moh said in a statement on fridaythe man had earlier tested negative on november 24 before leaving south africa and had remained in the transit holding area at changi airport until his departure for sydney said mohthe second traveller arrived from johannesburg via singapore airlines flight on november 19 and was in the transit holding area until her departure to malaysia the same daythis case was earlier reported as malaysias first detected case of the omicron variantat a briefing earlier on friday malaysian health minister khairy jamaluddin said the traveller was a 19yearold woman who is a student at a private university in ipoh perak state in northern peninsular malaysia and had completed her covid19 vaccinationon friday night singapores moh said 15 passengers on board the flight had been identified as her close contacts but none had entered singapore or interacted with the community in the citystate and all of them had remained in the transit holding areacontact tracing is ongoing for both cases and there is currently no evidence of any community transmission from them according to a report by the straits times citing mohmeanwhile all travellers entering singapore on vaccinated travel lanes vtl will soon have to take covid19 tests daily for seven days on arrival as the country tightens measures against the omicron variantthis means there will be additional swabs on top of the current requirement for a predeparture test an onarrival polymerase chain reaction pcr test as well as supervised antigen rapid tests arts on day