As Singapore faced a sudden spike in locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, authorities in 2021 tightened social gathering limits from five to just two — stopping short of a full lockdown to protect its fragile recovering economy. What followed was a quietly surreal visual shift across the island: a normally bustling, gregarious city reduced to pairs. In a country where outdoor socialising is deeply embedded in daily life, the sight of twos became the defining image of this particular chapter of the pandemic. These photographs are a document of that strange, in-between moment in Singapore's history.
Commissioned by Getty
