Davos of Asia falls victim to Covid rebound in Singapore, Taiwan

Singapore’s plans to showcase its pandemic-handling skills by hosting the World Economic Forum have been dashed.

Soldiers disinfect Taipei’s main rail station on Tuesday as Taiwan and Singapore face a resurgence in the number of COVID-19 cases. Picture: Reuters.

Singapore’s plans to showcase its pandemic-handling skills by hosting the world’s most famous flesh-pressing confab — the World Economic Forum — have been dashed, with organisers forced to cancel the event because of uncertainty caused by the emergence of new COVID-19 variants.

WEF organisers announced in December that the event, usually staged in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos, would be relocated and rescheduled from COVID-ravaged Europe in January to August in Singapore because of its proven record in suppressing the virus.

That has all changed in recent weeks with community infections — though still low — rising sharply, prompting the Singapore government to reimpose restrictions to curtail infections believed to have been introduced via international arrivals at Changi Airport.

Since Sunday, Singapore has closed all schools, banned in-person restaurant dining, and limited social gatherings to two people after confirming new clusters that have included the B. 1.617.2 variant first discovered in India.

Taiwan — Asia’s other model pandemic performer — also closed schools, bars and gyms at the weekend as it battles a fresh infection surge that has spread across Asia, threatening to derail the Tokyo Olympics which is again under threat from a spike in coronavirus cases and fresh calls for its cancellation.

The WEF released a statement saying: “Regretfully the tragic circumstances unfolding across geographies, an uncertain travel outlook, differing speeds of vaccination rollout and the uncertainty around new variants combine to make it impossible to realise a global meeting with business, government and civil society leaders from all over the world at the scale which was planned,” WEF said in a statement. The meeting will now be rescheduled to a new location in early 2022.

The announcement is a blow to Singapore authorities who had been confident of safely hosting an event that brings together some of the world’s most prominent business and government leaders, celebrities and activists to address pressing global issues.

In truth, Singapore and the WEF may never have been an ideal match given the city state’s emphasis on rules, and the event’s reputation for celebrity and mogul-stacked glamour parties between discussions on global ­issues. It is hard to imagine WEF stalwarts — the likes of the Clintons, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Bono — enthusiastically submitting to multiple PCR tests, happily downloading Singapore’s Trace Together contact tracing app and remaining cloistered like A-list prisoners at Marina Bay Sands. Many clearly didn’t fancy it, with registration numbers said to be down on previous years.

Founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab insisted cancelling had been a difficult decision, as many people had wanted to “come together, not just virtually but in person, and to contribute to a more resilient, more inclusive and more sustainable world”. “But ultimately the health and safety of everyone concerned is our highest priority.”

Singapore authorities will, nonetheless, push ahead next month with their annual international defence and security conference, the Shangri La Dialogue, with Japanese Prime Minister ­Yoshihide Suga confirmed as keynote speaker. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin is among at least a dozen defence ministers slated to attend.

The Singapore-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, which convenes the event, said it remained “on-track to convene the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue in person” from June 4. “The World Economic Forum’s decision does not affect our plans. We have a full line-up of ministers and other senior leaders from around the world planning to ­attend our event,” it said.

Singapore public health expert Jeremy Lim told The Australian the fresh COVID-19 outbreaks in Taiwan and Singapore had only underscored that “no country is safe until all countries are safe”.

“It’s a bit like the Tokyo Olympics. It’s important to host these things but at the same time if the stark reality signals that it’s not safe then we must have a Plan B, which may not be ideal but which allows the show to go on,” he said.