According to a document circulated on Friday, the Health Ministry issued a directive that public and private health centers must accept all arriving patients after reports that numerous sick people were turned away.
More than 2,000 people have visited a Phnom Penh mental health clinic in seven months, a doubling from last year, many of them suffering insomnia and developing unhealthy habits from worrying that they have Covid-19.
Hundreds of Cambodians have been put in tents in the Thai border area, with many more arriving every day, as some have attempted to cross uncleared minefields amid border closures due to Covid-19, a local official said.
In an announcement this week, the Health Ministry said the change to a 21-day interval was made based on a report from a Covid-19 commission and approval from Hun Sen. Vaccinations have already been underway for five months, and more than 5 million people have received doses.
Health officials have reiterated that vaccines prevent Covid-19 deaths but not transmission, as they blamed members of the public for the country’s ongoing surge.
Fifteen people have died since Friday in a village in Kampot province — 11 in another case of rice wine poisoning, and a further four others from “fainting” and other supposedly unrelated causes, local officials said.
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.
Cambodia’s Covid-19 numbers appear to be on the decline, but authorities stressed the need for continued vigilance as outbreaks have emerged across the region, and say they are keeping particularly close watch on factories and dense urban areas.
The Health Ministry is withholding Covid-19 case details under leaders’ instructions, as they are kept at the provincial level, preparing them nationally could take too long, neighboring countries also give only broad totals, and officials want to do more analysis, a spokesperson said.
UPDATED 10 p.m. — Travel between provinces has been banned for two weeks from Wednesday through April 20, spanning the Khmer New Year holidays amid the country’s worst Covid-19 outbreak to date, the government announced in a statement late Tuesday.
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