Siem Reap province is seeing a 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew, fines for not wearing masks properly, and lockdowns in targeted areas as precautions over rising Covid-19 case numbers, officials in the province said.
Many of the cases are returnees from Thailand, with the provincial administration announcing that 17 of 35 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday were imported.
On Wednesday, Siem Reap governor Tea Seiha said a province-wide curfew had been put in place from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Siem Reap province was seeing 30 to 50 new Covid-19 cases a day, with numbers continuing to rise this month, Seiha said.
The province had three checkpoints, and people arriving had their temperatures checked and details recorded, he said.
“We had one prison officer get infected with Covid-19, but because [we] took preventative measures, there is no spread. There was only one case,” he added.
Siem Reap city’s Sra Nge commune had been made a red zone, and the districts of Chi Kreng and Sotr Nikum were also locked down, he said.
Pa Por, first councilor in Sotr Nikum district’s Kampong Khlaing commune, said people were not allowed to leave their homes except for health emergencies and visiting markets in an orderly fashion.
“We have placed forces to control the market and first asked them to keep social distance, and secondly all vegetables and food must already be packaged, and we also asked to disinfect the money too,” Por said.
He said the local outbreak had emerged from the district, then commune, police.
Siem Reap province has also announced fines for those who do not wear masks properly. According to a notice from deputy provincial governor Pin Prak last week, around 5 percent of visitors to markets were still not wearing masks properly. Authorities would fine those who do not follow regulations, the notice said.
