A view of a closed market, during a 14-day city-wide lockdown, implemented due to an increasing number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 17, 2021. REUTERS / Cindy Liu / File Photo
Cambodia began setting up thousands of hospital beds in two wedding banquet halls on Sunday to accommodate the influx of COVID-19 patients in a country that until recently had largely managed to control infections.
Cambodia also reported a daily record of 618 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, the health ministry said, with infections peaking after an outbreak first discovered in late February.
The new figures brought the total number to 6,389. Cambodia had one of the lowest rates of infections in the world until recently. It has reported 43 deaths, all in the past two months.
“The Ministry of Health has decided to use the Sen Sok Premiere Center to prepare for the Covid-19 treatment center that can accommodate more than 1,500 Covid-19 patients,” Cambodian national television TVK said Sunday, citing a health officer.
Or Vandine, the spokeswoman for the Secretary of State and the Department of Health, said she was busy with a meeting and had no immediate response to a question from Reuters. Health Minister Mam Bunheng could not be reached for comment.
Images in the local media showed Mam Bunheng visiting one of the wedding venues Vimean Piphob Thmey Sensok while the police installed hospital beds. A Reuters photographer was denied entry and ordered to return the following week.
Earlier this week, the government also turned another weddig location, Koh Pich Convention & Exhibition Center, into a field hospital with approximately 1,800 beds.
Phnom Penh and a satellite district of the capital were shut down on Thursday in an effort to curb the spread of infections.
Under the lockdown, most people are not allowed to leave the house for two weeks, except to go to work, buy food, or for medical treatment.
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