The police in Singapore charged a man after he was accused of allowing another person to use his proof of vaccination to dine at a bar.
The authorities said that the man, Kiran Singh Rughbir Singh, 37, duped an employee at the bar to let Utheyakumar Nallathamby, 65, enter in September, according to Channel News Asia and other local news outlets.
To enter a bar in Singapore, visitors must be fully vaccinated or show a negative test result obtained less than 24 hours before. The 65-year-old was allowed to enter the bar after presenting Mr. Singh’s record on Singapore’s vaccine and contact tracing app, TraceTogether, showing he had been fully vaccinated.
If convicted, Mr. Singh, a Malaysian national, could be jailed for up to five years, fined or both. The authorities had also planned to charge Utheyakumar Nallathamby, but he could not appear in court because of medical issues, according to news reports.
Daily cases in Singapore have declined to fewer than 500 in the past two weeks from more than 3,000 in late October. But the country recently tightened its borders over concerns about the Omicron variant among travelers.
In other news from around the world:
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In Cuba, state officials have accelerated the coronavirus booster campaign to ward off the risk posed by the Omicron variant, state media reported. The campaign started in November, using Cuban-made vaccines, and is expected to conclude by the end of January. About 85 percent of its population of 11 million people is fully vaccinated, including children as young as 2.
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In Thailand, city administrators in Bangkok said that they plan to offer a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine to medical personnel, frontline health workers and those with weaker immune systems. No date was announced. Thailand reported 740 Omicron cases as of Wednesday, the Ministry of Public Health said, mostly in people arriving from abroad.
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New Zealand recorded its first case of community transmission of Omicron, after a recent arrival from Britain tested positive two days after finishing a seven-day hotel quarantine. The person had been socializing in Auckland, the country’s largest city, including at a nightclub and a restaurant. No close contacts have tested positive so far.
