Provincial authorities say they are no longer testing dead bodies for Covid-19 as part of a change in policy as the country pursues a gradual reopening of businesses and tourism, though Phnom Penh said it had yet to make the change.
The provincial administration told VOD no payments should have been asked of families of the Covid-19 dead, and police were now investigating the case. It also noted in a statement that more than half of the province’s Covid-19 corpses had yet to be cremated.
Crowds of residents armed with sticks blocked an ambulance from bringing a Covid-19 corpse into two villages in Prey Veng province for burial, forcing authorities to take the local ethnic Cham resident’s body to his family’s hometown in Tbong Khmum province.
Cambodia has seen a high case rate for the last two weeks, averaging more than 900 cases daily, with a similar spike in Covid-19 deaths. With the rising number of deaths, select pagodas across the city are working overtime to ensure the dead are given formal ceremonials.
As Covid-19 cases reach record highs, Prime Minister Hun Sen spoke for over two hours about rapid test kits being hoarded in warehouses, ventilators going unused, using Chinese herbal medicines for prevention and buying up 80 percent of all coffins in stock around the country.
Covid-19 is spreading across the country’s provinces as daily cases and deaths both hit record highs on Wednesday, as a governmental committee considers the situation to have reached a “red line,” a spokesperson said.
Cambodian Freedom Fighters commander Richard Kiri Kim, jailed for life for leading an armed attack on government buildings in 2000, died of Covid-19 on Thursday, a prisons official said.
Kampot province, seeing a recent surge in Covid-19 cases, burned two bodies at the foot of a mountain this week because its facilities aren’t yet
An inmate of Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, currently dealing with a Covid-19 outbreak, died from pneumonia at the Khmer-Soviet hospital on Monday, according to his wife, who said he did not have Covid-19 but the prisons were slow to treat him.
A man with a high fever took a Covid-19 test and hoped for treatment, but died on Saturday before the test returned and a space could open at Phnom Penh’s health centers.
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