Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
Two days ago the government imposed another round of business closures. It’s not a general lockdown but all non-essential businesses are to shut their doors for two weeks. The graph above, from VODenglish.news, shows why. We have had restrictions since 15 April–including three weeks of lockdown–but the graph seems to get worse, not better.
This big grey building housed a karaoke center pre-Covid-19. Then when the government closed all such gathering places, they reopened as restaurants–at least officially. Stories keep appearing in the papers of the music still going on inside. This place placed the name “LA Restaurant” over the entranceway and hung up a sign of various dishes, and, voila, a restaurant! During the morning marketing time, vendors fill the street in front of the hall.
The graph above, from VOD, indicates that all is not well with the Cambodian government’s efforts to slow down the spread of Covid-19 in the kingdom.
On the other hand, the government has made some good moves. Within ASEAN, Cambodia has vaccinated more people than any other country except Singapore. And Cambodia has from the start included us foreigners living here in their vaccination plans. In this picture a member of our English Catholic Community gets his second injection.
The Khmer Times is a pro-government newspaper so it was rather surprising to find this editorial rather strongly criticizing the government’s handling of the restrictions caused by Covid-19. Click here to read the editorial. Notice, though, that the writer was careful to applaud the prime minister while speaking ill of his “minions.” The writer’s harsh comments are very valid.
And here is the prime minister himself saying the police have done a good job.
One of the problems with controlling the spread of Covid-19 in Cambodia is the porous nature of the borders with Vietnam on the east and Thailand on the west. A good number of Chinese make their way to Vietnam and then illegally cross the border into Cambodia while on the Thai border, there are numbers of people going both directions, some with the reported help of the Thai military.
There are lots of new sights and scenes around town because of Covid-19 and all the lockdowns and restricted areas. There are some bananas hung up for sale on a wall along a street near the big market that has been closed because of many infections.
