The city-state has vaccinated about half its 5.7 million population with least one dose of vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

While Singapore's vaccination pace is relatively high, the country has been slower at resuming social activities and travel, compared with other places with similar inoculation rates.

"It has been 18 months since the pandemic started, and our people are battle-weary. All are asking: When and how will the pandemic end?" ministers Gan Kim Yong, Lawrence Wong and Ong Ye Kung said in an opinion piece in The Straits Times newspaper on Thursday.

Singapore has strict rules governing social gatherings, mask-wearing, contact-tracing and travel.

The ministers of trade, finance and health hoped to have at least two-thirds of the population fully vaccinated with two doses around Singapore's National Day on Aug. 9.

"We are working to bring forward the delivery of vaccines and to speed up the process," they said.

As the country achieves vaccination milestones, in time, instead of monitoring daily infection numbers, authorities will focus on the outcomes such as how many fall very sick. Those infected will be allowed to recover at home, so there will be less concern about the healthcare system being stressed.

Testing will be less of a tool for ring-fencing and quarantining people, but will be used more to ensure that events, social activities and overseas trips can take place safely.

The ministers said people will be able to travel again at least to countries that have also controlled the virus, with testing and vaccinations removing the need for quarantines.

Meanwhile, Taiwan is in talks with international bodies about COVID-19 vaccine passports, the head of its Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Thursday, which could help ease long-standing travel restrictions.

Taiwan has previously considered such a scheme but has been extremely cautious about opening its largely closed borders lest it lets in more infections, and is currently on high alert to stop the highly contagious Delta variant.

Taiwan CDC director general Chou Jih-haw told reporters they have already begun talks with other governments and international organizations about vaccine passports.

"We hope we can quickly get into step with the international community," he said, without giving details.

The government is trying to speed a vaccination program hobbled by supply delays, with around 7 percent of a population of 23.5 million having received at least one of the required two doses.

Chou said getting vaccines was still very difficult due to global shortages, but that they were working hard and he had no concrete timetable for when more might arrive.

Taiwan's government said last week it would allow Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Apple Inc supplier Foxconn, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd to negotiate on its behalf for vaccines from Germany's BioNTech SE.

Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng told the same news conference there was an "opportunity" for this plan to succeed.

"I want to emphasize that it is an opportunity, because there is almost no international use of this procurement method," he said.

Taiwan is dealing with a cluster of domestic infections, almost all the previously globally dominant Alpha variant, though numbers are stabilizing and the outbreak has been comparatively small.

Still, the cases have unnerved the government, which has enacted curbs on public gatherings and closed entertainment venues.

Taiwan has only reported five infections of the Delta variant to date, Chou said, all imported and who were identified while undergoing the strict two weeks quarantine overseas arrivals are subject to.

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