February 1, 2021
Khmer New Year will be celebrated as usual
Prime Minister HE announced that this year’s Khmer New Year which is annually celebrated in April will be marked as usual as COVID-19 has been contained.

Speaking at the ground-breaking of Bakheng Water Treatment Plant in Phnom Penh this morning, Mr HE said last year’s three-day holidays were cancelled to reduce the travelling of people to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection from one place to another.

“The reason for last year’s action was because 120,000 migrant workers from Thailand suddenly returned to Cambodia while many people would leave Phnom Penh during the holiday and it was hard to know whether a person had the virus or not,” Mr HE said. “It could have been so much complicated, even led to a community outbreak.”

“We do not plan to cancel it again this year because we can control the situation, especially the return of the migrant workers,” he said.

However, the Premier called for everyone to stick to the concept of “new normal”, such as practising good hygiene and social distancing, during the celebration of Khmer New Year as well as upcoming Chinese New Year, which will be celebrated this month by Chinese and Vietnamese descents in the country.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50809306/k ... -as-usual/

HE announced that this year’s Khmer New Year which is annually celebrated in April will be marked as usual as COVID-19 has been contained.

There's some famous last words if I've ever heard them. This virus is mutating faster than a Gavin Mack sock and has the capacity to explode through a population within weeks as we've seen all over the world. Now's not the time to get cocky one would have thought.

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 12:27 am February 1, 2021
Khmer New Year will be celebrated as usual
“We do not plan to cancel it again this year because we can control the situation, especially the return of the migrant workers,” he said.

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50809306/k ... -as-usual/

Yes, I agree with KFHB that it's an optimistic outlook. Perhaps they should have waited to see how it goes for the Chinese New Year - coming up 12 Feb, if I remember rightly.
(I know that it's not an official holiday in Cambodia, but a lot of Cambodian-Chinese will be moving around, visiting family, having parties etc, over the Chinese NY period. Not to mention the Chinese "expats".)

Hope for the best I guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if everyone gets told to stay home for Khmer NY again if there is another covid community outbreak between now and April.

Kung-fu Hillbilly wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 12:34 am has the capacity to explode through a population within weeks as we've seen all over the world.

To put some numbers on that from the UK:
23 Aug: 824 cases
19 Oct (8 weeks later): 25,626 cases

...then after a couple months of lockdown...

29 Nov: 10,691 cases
29 Dec: 81,541 cases

...and that's *with* venues, pubs etc all shut down, masks required on public transport, universities all in distance learning mode, and a large section of the workforce either furloughed or working from home.

What we've seen in the UK is that it takes a good month or so after doing a total lockdown for the numbers to even stop increasing, let alone start falling. If you wait for the numbers to climb before doing anything then you've already waited too long.

nerdlinger wrote:

Kung-fu Hillbilly wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 12:34 am has the capacity to explode through a population within weeks as we've seen all over the world.

To put some numbers on that from the UK:
23 Aug: 824 cases
19 Oct (8 weeks later): 25,626 cases

...then after a couple months of lockdown...

29 Nov: 10,691 cases
29 Dec: 81,541 cases

...and that's *with* venues, pubs etc all shut down, masks required on public transport, universities all in distance learning mode, and a large section of the workforce either furloughed or working from home.

What we've seen in the UK is that it takes a good month or so after doing a total lockdown for the numbers to even stop increasing, let alone start falling. If you wait for the numbers to climb before doing anything then you've already waited too long.

That's also with mass testing. No testing here besides entry points. I think the most tests conducted in a day was 900 (usually 100-300), vs probably 50k+ in the UK daily. Also, borders here were shut a bit more seriously than UK and other countries (and people wear masks a lot more).