Prime Minister Hun Sen said about 300 military doctors would be mobilized and two more hotels turned into hospitals as the country deals with its worst Covid-19 outbreak to date, including the first official death recorded on Thursday.
Cambodia has confirmed its first death from Covid-19, a Health Ministry statement said on Thursday, with a spokesperson saying the man had been put on a ventilator for two days.
The “February 20” Covid-19 outbreak is fanning out in the provinces, with a village of 300 households in Kandal province locked down, schools closed in parts of Siem Reap and Prey Veng, and parties, weddings and other gatherings suspended in Kampong Speu.
Fifteen Covid-19 cases in Phnom Penh’s Olympic commune, 30 in Kandal province, and eight in the capital’s Sen Sok district who have yet to be placed at a treatment center were among 64 new cases announced by the Health Ministry on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Tuesday that in the event of the death of Covid-19 patients, the bodies will need to be cremated. He ordered that Phnom Penh and provincial authorities make sure they have crematoriums ready in preparation.
Hundreds of quarantined returned migrants were transported away from border provinces on Tuesday following an order from the prime minister to relieve the pressure on Covid-19 quarantine centers.
Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered border authorities to send new arrivals coming in through land borders straight to their home provinces to quarantine if they aren’t showing symptoms, as one border province said it was struggling to feed the thousands of people in quarantine while returnees increased.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said in an audio message late Monday that the country had found 49 more Covid-19 cases, and called for state institutions to work largely from home and private businesses to reduce staff numbers in their workplaces.
Updated 3:51 p.m. — The country recorded 24 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, putting the total found since the start of the pandemic at 1,011, as Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered that patients be transferred out of the Phnom Penh Quarantine Center where a man died on Thursday and some patients spoke of poor care.
Covid-19 patients in Cambodia have been treated with hydroxychloroquine, a health official said, even though medical researchers last year dismissed the drug as a treatment for Covid-19, and the WHO this week said it should not be used to prevent or treat coronavirus.
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