Cambodian returnees from Thailand have surged since the reopening of borders on Friday, local officials said, with migrants trucked in from checkpoints to expanded quarantine centers.
Several Phnom Penh communes say they have recorded a rise in non-Covid-19 deaths this year, while a clinic and hospital say their patient numbers are down significantly as people choose self-treatment amid pandemic fears.
Some of the country’s Covid-19 patients are developing respiratory problems too quickly for doctors to address, the Health Ministry said on Thursday as it announced five deaths in two days from the disease, including a 28-year-old woman.
Phnom Penh governor Khuong Sreng has announced an 8 p.m. curfew in the capital from Thursday through April 14 amid the country’s worst Covid-19 outbreak to date, ordering a halt to gatherings and road traffic at night.
Cambodia’s latest Covid-19 deaths include a 38-year-old Cambodian DJ who was found to be positive just over a week before he died on Thursday, and a 43-year-old Chinese man with a registered address at a Kandal casino who tested positive two weeks ago.
A prisons official acknowledged that social distancing was impossible in the country’s overcrowded cells, but said officers were maintaining hygiene, checking prisoners for fevers and quarantining new arrivals for two weeks as Covid-19 prevention measures.
UPDATED — The Prince Central Plaza condominium complex in Phnom Penh was ordered locked down again late Sunday, and a second tenant was announced as having tested positive, just two days after it was reopened for all but one floor after a nearly monthlong Covid-19 quarantine. The building was again reopened Monday evening.
UPDATED — All schools, technical training institutes and cinemas have been ordered closed nationwide by government institutions as health authorities announced 102 new Covid-19 cases this weekend, raising the number of active cases higher than they’ve ever been.
Cambodia reported its second death from Covid-19 on Friday, eight days after its first official death was announced on March 11 and about a month into the largest community outbreak the country has seen.
All Covid-19 cases genetically sequenced in the ongoing “February 20” outbreak in Cambodia — which has seen more than 1,000 patients total — have been the more contagious B.1.1.7 variant, believed to be the only variant currently circulating in Cambodia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Phnom Penh said Thursday.
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