1. Cambodia
COVID variant pushes Cambodia to brink of ‘national tragedy’
The Southeast Asian nation is battling a surge in COVID variant cases traced back to a quarantine breach.
Cambodia recently administered its1 1,000,000th dose of COVID-19 vaccine, but cases have surged in the past few weeks, driven by the emergence of the UK variant [Mak Remissa/EPA]
By Phorn Bopha
15 Apr 2021
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Updated:
15 Apr 2021
06:56 AM (GMT)
Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Cambodia is in the grip of its worst outbreak of the coronavirus since the pandemic began more than a year ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, warning that the Southeast Asian nation is on the verge of a “national tragedy”.
In less than a week, Cambodia has recorded more than 1,000 cases of the virus. As of Wednesday, 35 people had died.
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That compares with less than 500 cases in the first year of the pandemic and no COVID-19-related deaths reported at all.
On Thursday, the government ordered all residents of Phnom Penh, the capital, and the neighbouring district of Ta Khmau, to stay at home unless they needed to buy food or seek medical treatment.
The lockdown comes in the middle of the Khmer New Year, a three-day national holiday, which began on Wednesday, and usually sees thousands of Cambodians travel to their home provinces to celebrate.
The WHO earlier in the week implored people to stay at home.
“We stand on the brink of a national tragedy because of COVID-19. Despite our best efforts, we are struggling to control the virus. New cases occur every day and we are racing against the virus,” said Dr Li Ailan, the WHO Representative to Cambodia.
“Unless we can stop the outbreak, Cambodia’s health system is at high risk of being overwhelmed which would have disastrous consequences.”
Cambodia had previously experienced only small clusters of COVID-19 that were quickly controlled, but Dr Li says the emergence of the variant of COVID-19 that was first detected in the UK – known officially as the B.1.1.7 variant – meant things were different this time.
“The B.1.1.7 variant spreads more easily between people and can cause serious illness,” she said. “Many countries with strong health systems have been overwhelmed by this variant. We need to ensure the same doesn’t happen to Cambodia.”
Restrictions have been imposed in the capital with full lockdowns in some areas [Mak Remissa/EPA]All new cases are linked to an outbreak known as the February 20 event, marking the date it was first detected. The origin has been traced to four Chinese nationals who are alleged to have bribed security guards to leave hotel quarantine before the end of their mandated 14-day stay. Reports say the group had arrived from Dubai, one of more than 90 countries where the B.1.1.7 variant has now spread to.
‘Bad governance’
Prime Minister Hun Sen in a speech last Saturday acknowledged that “bad governance” was a factor in the worsening outbreak, which is responsible for all of Cambodia’s more than 30 virus-related fatalities and has pushed the total number of cases in the country to more than 4,500 ones.
At least 50 people who tested positive for COVID-19 gave false information about their address, leaving authorities unable to locate them.
Causing further alarm, the virus has spread into the garment industry, which provides work to millions of people and is a crucial part of the economy. So far, at least 50 infections have been detected at Din Han factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital and advocates fear that more workers are vulnerable.
May Sopheaktra, the secretary-general of President of Cambodian Alliance of Trade Union (CATU), says workers themselves were increasingly concerned about the risk.
Sopheaktra added there was insufficient monitoring within factories to guarantee workers were following COVID-19 guidelines, such as social distancing.
“The garment industry is not closely monitored,” he said, adding digital thermometers in use at sites appeared to be faulty.
Transportation is also a major concern, he said. Factories employ thousands of staff, largely women, from poor rural areas. Many travel to and from work in tightly packed trucks. While the trucks are open to the air, they are packed with passengers.
“When they are in trucks they don’t have social distancing, 30 to 40 of them in the same truck at once.”
Millions make a living from the garment industry but civil society advocates worry workers are at risk from the disease because there is little monitoring of physical distancing including during the journey to work [Kith Serey/EPA]Other hotspots include several local markets, which are also densely packed with traders and customers from across the country.
Dr Michael Kinzer, the programme director at the Division of Global Health Protection (DGHP) for CDC Cambodia, said such areas were high-risk.
“There’s locations that are called ‘three C’ locations, and the three Cs stand for close quarters, crowded and confined. And if you want to think of an example, a KTV [karaoke television lounge] would be a good example where everyone is indoors in a closed space crowded talking eating drinking, those are the high-risk environments,” Dr Kinzer told Al Jazeera.
“We are seeing transmission in family members, so people who share the same household, people who eat and drink together because you can’t wear a mask while you eat and drink. People who ride in cars. That’s another risk factor.”
Travel ban, curfew
In an attempt to curb the outbreak, the government has introduced a raft of restrictions and tough penalties for those who break the rules.
Hun Sen recently threatened people who breached the measures – which include a ban on inter-district travel, mandatory mask wearing and a nighttime curfew in the capital and some other areas – with immediate arrest and prison.
Some neighbourhoods in Phnom Penh with a particularly high number of COVID-19 cases have also been locked down and sealed off with roadblocks crewed by police and military police.
Cambodia has one of the region’s most underfunded healthcare systems. The most recent World Bank figures show that only 5 percent of government spending goes on healthcare, compared with 9 percent in Vietnam and 15 percent in Thailand. The burden is borne by Cambodians themselves: 57 percent of the country’s health expenditure comes “out of pocket” – only Myanmar, at 76 percent, is higher.
Cambodia also has the lowest reported figure in the region for hospital beds per 1,000 people – at 0.9. Access to healthcare is also particularly difficult for poor Cambodians in rural provinces, studies show.
To cope with the potential demand, the government has turned a hotel and a big wedding centre into makeshift COVID-19 hospitals, adding more than 5,000 beds, according to local media. It has also asked COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms to isolate at home.
Authorities are also rushing to dispense vaccines, which are now mandatory for civil servants and military officials. The majority of Cambodia’s vaccine stocks have come from China, which donated one million doses of the Sinopharm jab. Cambodia has also purchased the Sinovac vaccine.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is given a dose of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at a Phnom Penh hospital on March 4. The country has received vaccines from China as well as through the UN-backed COVAX programme [Stringer/EPA]It also has access to stocks of the AstraZeneca vaccine via the UN-backed COVAX programme which helps poor countries access vaccine supplies.
At the weekend, the government announced it had administered the 1,000,000th jab.
“Well, we have a few tools that we didn’t have last year,” said Dr Kinzer. “One of them is vaccines, of course. And vaccines should help us reduce the number of susceptible. And the number of severe cases.”
Kinzer warns, however, that the current pace of the outbreak, is exceeding the capacity of contract-tracing workers, as new cases were being discovered outside their lists of known contacts.
“So, we should expect that this will go on for several more weeks, even if we are successful,” he said.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Mounting desperation in Cambodia amid COVID lockdown
Government using punitive laws to tackle surge in coronavirus cases, as the closure of markets leaves people hungry.
Villagers stand behind a lockdown barrier to ask for food donations after their village has been closed for more than two weeks inside a red zone with strict lockdown measures during the latest outbreak of COVID-19 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 30, 2021 [Cindy Liu/Reuters]
By Phorn Bopha
2 May 2021
Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Iv Sovann has been in lockdown with her family in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh since April 5 when the government imposed a raft of stringent measures to curb a sudden surge of coronavirus cases.
The 36-year-old’s family of six has no income.
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Her husband, a teacher, lost his job when the school where he worked shut down a year ago.
Sovann has been keeping the family afloat by working as an accounts assistant for a local transport company.
“We are not rich. We live hand to mouth. If we were rich like others, it would be OK for us to be in quarantine for a year,” she said.
Desperate for food, this week she was among a group of people in the Phnom Penh district of Stueng Meanchey who took matters into their own hands.
“We saw some people get some food like rice noodles and canned fish, and we did not get anything. So, we went out to ask for our food,” she said.
People carry sacks of rice and other food supplies donated by the local government inside a red zone with strict lockdown measures in Phnom Penh [Cindy Liu/Reuters]Her protest secured Iv Sovann a 25kg (55 pounds) bag of rice from the local authority but others were not so lucky.
“There are still many more families,” she said. “I don’t know why some get donations, and why some don’t.”
‘They fabricate the news’
Cambodia is grappling with its worst COVID-19 outbreak since the pandemic began last year and has imposed strict lockdowns, backed by punitive fines and jail terms, in Phnom Penh and several other areas in a bid to curb the virus’s spread.
The country has reported more than 13,000 cases and more than 90 deaths in less than three months.
Authorities have designated neighbourhoods with high rates of coronavirus cases as “red zones”.
Within these districts – home to roughly 300,000 people – villagers are unable to leave their homes except for medical emergencies.
The government has promised to supply food to the areas, and blocked aid groups from entering the red zones to offer relief, but its efforts appear to have fallen short, leaving thousands desperate.
Vorn Pao, president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), says he receives hundreds of messages from its members every day asking for help. He estimates about 5,000 of the organisation’s 14,000 members across the country do not have enough to eat, especially those in “red zones”.
“[We] are lacking food,” he told Al Jazeera.
“We are appealing to the government to help assist with [food] without discrimination.”
On Friday, Amnesty International called on the government to allow civil society to deliver aid to those facing food shortages warning Cambodia was facing a crisis as a result of the government’s policies in response to the rising infections, all linked to the B.1.1.7 variant.
“The Cambodian government’s outrageous mishandling of this COVID-19 lockdown is causing untold suffering and sweeping human rights violations across the country,” Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific regional director, said in a statement.
“Right now, residents of ‘red zones’ and others in Cambodia are going hungry because of fundamentally unreasonable policies.”
Phay Siphan, a government spokesman, reacted angrily to Amnesty’s criticisms.
Amnesty “does not know Cambodia”, he said, branding those who told Al Jazeera that they did not have food “liars”.
“We help them; we study which areas they are in and what the situation they are in,” he said.
“We have checked [them]. They just fabricate the news. It’s not true.”
Questioned further, he doubled down.
“They are lying,” he said. “Tell me who doesn’t have food. Text me the [addresses] of those who don’t have food. I’ll get food to send to them right away.”
Local and international organisations have called on the government to let them into the red zones to help those in need.
“The government must urgently give access to NGOs and UN agencies who are equipped to safely provide critical medical services, food, and other essential social services in these areas,” said Naly Pilorge, director of Licadho, Cambodia’s most prominent human rights organisation.
A police officer stands guard on a bridge in Phnom Penh. The capital is among areas of Cambodia that have been placed in lockdown amid a sudden surge in coronavirus cases [File: Mak Remissa/EPA]Amnesty echoed the appeal.
“Everyone under lockdown must be provided access to adequate food, water, health care and other essential items,” Mishra said in the statement.
Food supplies cut
People working in construction, garment factories, on the land and in informal work have been worst affected by the lockdown measures, which have forced the closure of all markets in Phnom Penh where most common people buy their food.
Ou Virak, president of Future Forum, a think-tank dedicated to public policy issues, says the government could alleviate shortages by making existing supply chains COVID-19 safe, instead of shutting them down.
“I think the [government] should allow the existing markets to open, but make sure they are not too close to each other,” he said.
By doing so, the government would not only help people who need food, but also the farmers who are struggling to find a market for their produce.
“Shutting down the market is a very risky measure,” said Ou Virak. “Even if you have money, you can’t buy food.”
Sok Eysan, spokesman of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, rejects criticism that the government has mishandled the lockdown, saying supplies are sufficient.
“Until now, we have not heard of people who died because of starvation or because of lacking food since the government, Red Cross and generous people are actively helping people everywhere, especially those in the red zones,” he said.
Cambodia is stepping up its vaccination programme, starting with those above 18, in the country’s ‘red zones’ [Mak Remissa/EPA]Amid the new wave of cases, the country has stepped up its vaccination programme and prioritised people living in the red zones. More than 1.3 million people in the country of 15 million have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
‘Zero tolerance’
But it has also relied on more punitive measures to curtail the spread of the virus.
In March, the government passed a new COVID-19 law that imposes a fine of as much as $5,000 and a jail term of up to 20 years for those who breach the rules. Cambodia has a monthly average income of about $550.
The United Nations has called on the government to revise the law saying it is “grossly disproportionately”.
According to Licadho, authorities have arrested 258 people under the COVID-19 law. Of these, 83 have been charged, placed in custody and taken to jail. Last month, a provincial court sentenced four people to a one-year prison term for dancing and drinking.
“A public health crisis is not the time to be sending more people to Cambodia’s overcrowded prisons,” Naly Pilorge said.
“The COVID-19 law should be repealed, and those arrested and sentenced to draconian prison terms under the law should be immediately released.
“Authorities should instead focus on organising safe vaccinations for at-risk populations, providing a social safety net for those most in need, and ensuring access to food, medicine and other necessities for the nearly 300,000 people locked in red zones across the capital.”
People wait to get tested inside a red zone with strict lockdown measures during the latest outbreak of the coronavirus disease in Phnom Penh [File: Cindy Liu/Reuters]Sok Eysan, however, remains unmoved.
He says the government will adopt a zero-tolerance approach to people who violate the COVID-19 law, as it tries to curb the spread of the virus.
“Those who violate the principle of this [COVID] law in any article must be responsible for it before the law,” he said.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
2. THAILAND
these numbers show deaths only increased since middle of April 2021 from 50 to 735 in total – was this when “vaccinations” started mounting?
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Buriram province to penalize high-risk groups refusing COVID-19 vaccine
May 14, 2021
Individuals aged 18 and older in Buriram province deemed by the local authorities to be at risk of COVID-19 infection who refuse to get vaccinated, will be penalized, according to a provincial order published recently.
Buriram Governor Thatchakorn Hatthathayakul urged every individual, aged 18 or more, living or working in Buriram, to submit their COVID-19 risk assessment form and apply for vaccination through the publicly available channels by May 31st.
The channels include door-to-door approach by public health volunteers, online registration or personal visits to hospitals or health offices in the province. Failure to apply by May 31st is liable to one month in prison and/or a fine of 10,000 Baht.
If, during the application process, health officials or officials from the Disease Control Department find that the applicant is deemed to be at risk of getting infected, they can order them to get vaccinated at a specific venue and on a specific day.
Those who refuse to receive vaccine jabs, as ordered, may face a maximum fine of 60,000 Baht – 20,000 Baht for a violation of the Communicable Diseases Act and 40,000 Baht for a violation of the emergency decree – and/ or two years in prison .
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What we know so far about COVID-19 vaccination in Thailand
Here’s a tentative timeline of the country’s vaccination program
By Top KoaysomboonPosted: Thursday January 28 2021, 2:20 PM
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Vaccinations against the dreaded COVID-19 have started in other countries and many of us are wondering when inoculations will start in the kingdom. Here’s what we’ve gathered.
What’s the plan?
The Prayut-led government has announced that 33 million Thai citizens—that’s about half of the country—will get the COVID-19 vaccine before the end of 2021.
Where do the vaccines come from?
We’ll get them mainly from two manufacturers: Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company Sinovac and British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. The latter has also signed a bilateral deal with Crown Property Bureau-parented biopharmaceutical company Siam Bioscience to produce and distribute at least 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine for the Southeast Asian region .
When will vaccination start in Thailand?
The first round of injections will start on or around Feb 14. Frontline medical workers and high-risk citizens will be the first to be inoculated. Here’s a brief:
- February: First 50,000 doses from AstraZeneca will arrive, followed by 200,000 doses from Sinovac. (These vaccines require two doses per person.
- March: 800,000 doses from Sinovac and 150,000 doses from AstraZeneca.
- April: 1,000,000 doses from Sinovac.
- May: 26 million doses from AstraZeneca-Siam Bioscience bilateral production.
The government has assured the country that they’re working extra-hard to get the vaccines as planned.
Why does it take so long?
All vaccines must first be approved by the Thai FDA.
Is it free?
Yes, the vaccines are free for Thai citizens. Expats may have to pay to get vaccinated, but we still don’t know how much.
What are some concerns with regards to vaccination?
A major issue is the quality of the vaccine. Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine tested just above the bottom line of vaccine efficiency at 50.4 percent, according to a clinical trial in Brazil. In comparison, the vaccine produced by Pfizer and Moderna, which are now being widely used in western countries, are reported to be 95 percent effective.
Second, the fact that only half of the Thai population will get the vaccine has raised some eyebrows. The Ministry of Public Health, however, has said that this number is enough to create herd immunity in the kingdom.
Third, concerned citizens are citing a conflict of interest. Charoen Pokphand Group (CP), one of Thailand’s largest conglomerates, owns at least 15 percent of Sinovac. Netizens have questioned whether the B1.2 billion the Thai government is paying for the Chinese vaccine will only end up expanding the wealth of the private firm. Political activist Thanatorn Juengrungruengkit has also argued that the AstraZeneca deal lacked transparency and wondered why Siam Bioscience has a monopoly on producing a vaccine in Thailand.
We’ll keep reporting updates once we get them. Keep your eyes on this space.
So is the master plan :
1.Test Test Test
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If no cases then increase the CT rate and Test Test Test
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Cases lead to fearmongering
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Fearmongering and cases lead to covid deaths perhaps with a little help from definition of a covid death ( 28 days from a Test Test Test)
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Covid deaths no matter how small lead to more fearmongering and Vaccine orders
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“Vaccinations” lead to deaths, lead to Test Test Test, lead to deaths from covid not “vaccines”, lead to more vaccines.
Thailand and Cambodia found themselves behind the profit curve so they’ve been a bit late in catching up – but the asian billionaires will soon be in the money with their 2 to 20 year prison sentence threats!
cheers
PS I didn’t look at India but this may have the same characteristics?
PPS I love the names of the people the journos interviewed : Dr Li, Thatchakorn - are they trying to tell us something without editorial consent?