Singapore will strive to keep its borders open and stay connected to the rest of world even if a new COVID-19 variant emerges, Transport Minister S. Iswaran has said.

The island city has learned from its past experiences of dealing with COVID-19 variants, Iswaran said Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg News. When omicron hit, Singapore didn’t backtrack on its reopening plans but rather decided to wait and see how things panned out, he said, noting that response was different versus the delta outbreak.

"We’ve all learned to adapt,” Iswaran said on the sidelines of the Changi Aviation Summit. "We have more tools in the toolkit. It’s not as if you always only have a hammer. Now I’ve got you know, a wrench and a screwdriver and all kinds of other things as well. It really comes down to an assessment of the situation and the risk and then to take a calibrated response.”