Prime Minister Hun Sen released his second Covid-related audio message Tuesday night claiming the country had recorded its first positive case in 52 days and again pushed for people to come get booster shots.
The prime minister released a 7-minute audio message late Tuesday night and said he had received information that “Covid-19 had started again” after positive cases were detected in the country. He did not detail how many cases or where they were detected.
“So I would like to appeal to our people to be careful in protecting their personal health and in every place there needs to be serious measures to avoid the pandemic into the community, families or establishments,” he said.
“I would like to announce again that our country starts having Covid-19 again. After the absence for 52 days, we have started having Covid-19 on the 53rd day.”
The Ministry of Health reported 10 new cases Wednesday morning, two of which were imported and eight were domestic infections. Of the eight cases, five were people who had asked for Covid-19 tests to travel overseas.
The audio message came 24 hours after a similar audio clip was posted to the prime minister’s Facebook page where Hun Sen implored people who were yet to get their third vaccine dose to get the booster shot. Vaccinations rates for third and fourth doses have dropped off significantly.
“It is not a difficulty [of lacking] vaccines but what is difficult is people are not coming for the vaccines,” he said Monday night.
Back to Tuesday’s message, Hun Sen said PCR and rapid tests had returned positive cases and asked people to resume the use of health measures like masks and hand washing. The government only requires masks in indoor settings.
He repeated his plea for people to get vaccinated.
“I eagerly appeal to people that have not got the booster dose to hurriedly get a booster dose. If there are no serious measures, our country could return to a bad situation,” he said.
Updated at 11:20 a.m. with Covid-19 numbers.
