New inmates arriving to Banteay Meanchey and Svay Rieng provincial prisons tested positive for Covid-19 — in the latter case, after being in contact with nearly 50 people — with the disease now having spread to at least seven prisons.
Afraid of getting locked down inside a bicycle factory, an estimated 2,000 workers fled out of rear entrances, overwhelmed a deputy governor asking them to stay, carried their motorbikes through a pond, and scattered.
Amid Cambodia’s worst Covid-19 outbreak to date, provinces outside the cluster’s urban epicenters of Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville are keeping a close watch on arrivals, hoping to prevent the disease’s spread across provincial borders.
More than 2,000 garment workers have been suspended from a factory in Svay Rieng province for two months, with the company saying it cut employees because the factory had received no orders from buyers amid the Covid-19 economic downturn.
The Svay Rieng Provincial Court placed a 32-year-old man in pretrial detention on Thursday over accusations of defamation, public insult, incitement to commit a felony and insulting the king.
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