First, Cambodia's response strategy has turned out to be effective, at least for now. The country has performed around 16,000 tests since January and has conducted extensive contact tracing.
It temporarily shut down borders to foreigners, especially those from the West, closed schools, universities and entertainment venues across the country, banned domestic travel for one week, canceled new year celebrations and quarantined more than 15,000 garment workers. The effectiveness of all these measures perhaps lies in the fact that they were adopted quickly and early in the pandemic.
Second, support from the World Health Organization and international partners has been instrumental. The WHO has played a pivotal role in coordinating and providing technical assistance and the World Bank has approved $20 million in credit to support Cambodia's COVID-19 response project. The EU has offered a $61 million grant to combat COVID-19 and revive the economy.
China, Japan and Vietnam have donated medical equipment and supplies, while Australia, France, Germany and the U.S. have each committed millions of dollars to assist Cambodia in the fight against the coronavirus. Russia has also expressed willingness to join others in assisting Cambodia.
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Third, there have been concerted efforts by the government and its supporters. Following Prime Minister Hun Sen's lead in early April when he announced he would donate his salary for seven months (roughly $17,500) to the National Committee for Combating COVID-19, other government officials have pledged to donate some or all of their salaries. Several members of the Cambodian business elite have also donated to support the country's anti-COVID-19 committee.
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Finally, Cambodia's COVID-19 victories can be explained in socio-economic terms. Almost 80% of Cambodia's population lives in rural areas with a low population density, making it harder for the virus to spread and easier for the government to manage the pandemic by allocating resources to denser, higher-risk locations such as Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville.
As a developing country, Cambodia suffers from poor road conditions and inadequate sanitation facilities. To protect themselves from inhaling unnecessary dust and exhaust fumes, many Cambodians wear face masks when going out, so they adopted masks to fight COVID-19 with relative ease. With 40% of the population near or below the poverty line, overseas travel, thus imported cases, are limited.