The New York Times :
When Cambodia’s prime minister greeted passengers on a cruise ship amid a coronavirus scare on Valentine’s Day, embraces were the order of the day. Protective masks were not.
Not only did Prime Minister Hun Sen not wear one, assured that the ship was virus-free, his bodyguards ordered people who had donned masks to take them off. The next day, the US ambassador to Cambodia, W Patrick Murphy, who brought his own family to greet the passengers streaming off the ship, also went maskless.
“We are very, very grateful that Cambodia has opened literally its ports and doors to people in need,” Murphy said.
But after hundreds of passengers had disembarked, one later tested positive for the coronavirus. Now, health officials worry that what Cambodia opened its doors to was the outbreak, and that the world may pay a price as passengers from the cruse ship Westerdam stream home.
Before the Westerdam docked in Sihanoukville, fearful governments in other countries had turned the ship away at five ports of call even though the cruise operator, Holland America, assured officials that the ship’s passengers had been carefully screened.
Hun Sen’s decision to allow it entry appeared to be a political calculus as much as anything else. The region’s longest-serving ruler and a close ally of China, he is known for his survival skills.
But Hun Sen’s critics worry that the aging autocrat might have acted rashly.
“Of course, he had to do the dictator thing: photo op, roses, exploit this for its maximum value,” said Sophal Ear, an expert in Cambodian politics at Occidental College. “Whatever is in the best interest of Cambodians is completely irrelevant to him.”
It is too early to tell whether the decision to let hundreds of passengers from the Westerdam fly off has the makings of an epidemiological disaster. Cambodian health authorities said that 409 of the 2,257 passengers and crew had left Cambodia for their homes scattered across the globe. The rest remain in hotels in Phnom Penh, the capital, or on the ship.
But deficiencies in screening for the coronavirus aboard the ship, along with continued complacency about the epidemic in Cambodia, are raising fears this small Southeast Asian nation could prove to be a surprising vector of transmission for a virus that has already killed more than 1,700 people, mostly in China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
When Cambodia’s prime minister greeted passengers on a cruise ship amid a coronavirus scare on Valentine’s Day, embraces were the order of the day. Protective masks were not.
Not only did Prime Minister Hun Sen not wear one, assured that the ship was virus-free, his bodyguards ordered people who had donned masks to take them off. The next day, the US ambassador to Cambodia, W Patrick Murphy, who brought his own family to greet the passengers streaming off the ship, also went maskless.
“We are very, very grateful that Cambodia has opened literally its ports and doors to people in need,” Murphy said.
But after hundreds of passengers had disembarked, one later tested positive for the coronavirus. Now, health officials worry that what Cambodia opened its doors to was the outbreak, and that the world may pay a price as passengers from the cruse ship Westerdam stream home.
Before the Westerdam docked in Sihanoukville, fearful governments in other countries had turned the ship away at five ports of call even though the cruise operator, Holland America, assured officials that the ship’s passengers had been carefully screened.
Hun Sen’s decision to allow it entry appeared to be a political calculus as much as anything else. The region’s longest-serving ruler and a close ally of China, he is known for his survival skills.
But Hun Sen’s critics worry that the aging autocrat might have acted rashly.
“Of course, he had to do the dictator thing: photo op, roses, exploit this for its maximum value,” said Sophal Ear, an expert in Cambodian politics at Occidental College. “Whatever is in the best interest of Cambodians is completely irrelevant to him.”
It is too early to tell whether the decision to let hundreds of passengers from the Westerdam fly off has the makings of an epidemiological disaster. Cambodian health authorities said that 409 of the 2,257 passengers and crew had left Cambodia for their homes scattered across the globe. The rest remain in hotels in Phnom Penh, the capital, or on the ship.
But deficiencies in screening for the coronavirus aboard the ship, along with continued complacency about the epidemic in Cambodia, are raising fears this small Southeast Asian nation could prove to be a surprising vector of transmission for a virus that has already killed more than 1,700 people, mostly in China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
