Cambodia halts Festival of the Dead after Covid outbreak

Cambodia has cancelled its Festival of the Useless – an yearly holiday exactly where the Buddhist trustworthy shell out respects to deceased relatives – immediately after a coronavirus outbreak among the monks in the cash.

Worshippers all around the country check out pagodas through the two-week Pchum Ben festival to provide prayers and meals to the spirits of their ancestors.

This year’s observance commenced on Tuesday but will appear to an early end on the weekend immediately after nearly 50 Buddhist monks analyzed beneficial for coronavirus and authorities locked down their temple in Phnom Penh.

The pageant cancellation was “vital to manage the unfold of Covid-19…at the time that Cambodia is reopening faculties and is planning to reopen the country,” Primary Minister Hun Sen explained in a Thursday night time assertion.

Cambodia mostly prevented the unfold of the pandemic previous 12 months but surging bacterial infections since have seen far more than 105 000 situations and virtually 2200 fatalities.

It has even so won praise for a swift vaccine drive, with Cambodia’s health ministry proclaiming that more than 98 per cent of the country’s adult populace has acquired at least just one dose.

Faculties in some decrease-risk areas of the region reopened last week and Hun Sen claimed a pilot scheme to let totally vaccinated intercontinental travellers to go to is beneath consideration.

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