As an outbreak seizes Cambodia, patients who test positive for the virus say they are being forced into quarantine centers that are more like makeshift prisons than hospitals.
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By Charles McDermid
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The patients sit in packed ambulances before passing through metal gates. Once they are inside, they get a number, like C07-22, a thin blanket and a bedsheet, which is meant to be a mosquito net. Lights shine bright at all hours for constant camera surveillance. Each person is given four bottles of water a day and three small meals.
The Cambodian government, racing to contain a raging coronavirus outbreak, has set up a system of forced quarantine centers that patients say are run more like makeshift prisons than hospitals. No one is allowed to leave until they test negative — and most people are stuck for at least 10 days.
Cambodia was a Covid success story until a few months ago. From 500 cases and no deaths in late February, there were 72,104 cases and 1,254 deaths by Saturday — with nearly 900 new cases per day and almost 70 percent of the fatalities coming in the preceding month.
The sprawling quarantine centers are the product of an overwhelmed and underfunded health care system, a jolt of recent Covid deaths and an authoritarian streak that often turns to a robust security apparatus in times of trouble. The Cambodian government has gone from nonchalance to closures to crackdowns.
In April, a law was passed that threatened 20 years in prison for anyone judged to have intentionally spread the virus. During a recent curfew period, security forces patrolled darkened neighborhoods with bamboo canes.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, a strongman who has held power for 36 years, has thundered against anyone who escaped government treatment, eluded quarantine or violated home isolation.
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