After 7 days of daily new case figures above 800 cases a day, Cambodia saw a dramatic drop in new cases today with, seemingly, the lowest daily figures total since April the 14th, 2021.

For the first time, new cases had the note ‘Result from PCR’ under the government supplied figures – possibly indicating a new way of measuring new cases.

Today’s official daily new COVID case total was 232, bringing the COVID case total to 112,883 cases.

The total number of Community Cases is now 93,855 with 19,028 cases being imported.

Yesterday, Siem Reap ended it’s ‘Red Zones’ – with Oddar Meanchey following suit today.

However, Siem Reap’s Governor has threatened to resume lockdowns and red zones if citizens do not observe safety guidelines.

Observers now fear that the forthcoming Pchum Benh festivities may prompt an escalation of already rising COVID figures.

The Ministry of Health today issued a warning ahead of the imminent festivities that any laxity in strict adherence to preventive measures may result in losing the impetus gained so far in managing outbreaks.

Spokeswoman Or Vandine pleaded with citizens:

“Those visiting family members, please try and stay at home. If you want to visit tourist sites, try to go with just your family members instead of travelling with many other people in one vehicle,”

Unfortunately, the ongoing policy to stop releasing any provincial figures has meant that it is now difficult to gauge the true spread of COVID in Cambodia.

Certainly, there is now a  general upwards trend in The Kingdom (notwithstanding todays extremely low new case figures)- as illustrated in the graph (please note results are 2 days behind) below:

below:

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However against the rising figures, the success of the Royal Government’s vaccination program – the ‘Cambodian vaccination miracle’  – can be seen in the chart below,

Cambodia not only has a much higher vaccination rate than it’s immediate neighbours of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam – but that it has now overtaken almost every major country in the world – including China, France, the UK, the USA, and Germany.

As the campaign now moves to the 3rd ‘booster dose’, Dr. Yuok Sambath, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Health has affirmed that Cambodia has enough COVID-19 vaccines to provide for people as booster doses.

The ongoing success of the vaccination campaign has prompted hopes that The Kingdom may ease Covid restrictions ahead of reopening.

45 imported cases were announced today.

Cambodia also announced 17 new deaths, bringing the total to 2336 direct deaths from COVID-19 in Cambodia.

Recoveries outpaced new cases with 556 new recoveries announced today – meaning that the active case total dropped – for the first time in many weeks – to 7,157 active cases.