PHNOM PENH: Prime Minister Hun Sen has confirmed that there will be no more city or country closures or lockdowns, while many have suggested that Cambodia may likely see another blockade. He made this statement on Tuesday morning while speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of Boeung Choeung Ek wastewater treatment plant in Meanchey district, Phnom Penh.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has said that there is no need to close Phnom Penh or the whole country again, as was done in 2021, due to the high vaccination rate in the Cambodian population.

He said that while “in the past, if there were infections found in a market, we would have to close the market, but now we just need to close the shop of the infected vendor and have the place disinfected, this is the normal process and no [market wide] closures will need to take place.”

He continued to say that he "would like to end the rumor that there will be a closure of cities and provinces again.” He said “the decision to close Phnom Penh and Takhmao in the past was a difficult but correct one, because at that time we had not been fully vaccinated, but now we have vaccinated the whole country, so there is no reason to close again.”

In 2021, due to the 20 February community transmission event, Cambodia was forced to close the country to prevent a large-scale outbreak in the country. This year, despite the rising number of new infections in the community due to the Covid-19 Omicron variant, Prime Minister Hun Sen has confirmed that there will be no more country closures.