were down 98% from sales in october 2019. cambodian cultural village permanently closed. at least 600 hotels nationwide have closed, and more than 10,000 tourism sector employees have become unemployed. over 3 million children were affected by school closures. unicef stressed that adjusting to online learning disadvantages rural poor children in cambodia, and the disruptions to education during the pandemic could have a long-lasting impact. lockdown restrictions and enforcement in april 2021 caused disruptions to phnom penh food supplies and led to tens of thousands of requests for food aid across the city. resurgence of ting mong a ting mong in 2020. the covid-19 pandemic in cambodia revived the traditional ting mong, a khmer scarecrow hung on the outer walls of private houses or at the entry of the villages as an apotropaic popular belief. this curious practise against the spread of the coronavirus gained international attention. humanitarian assistance the us delivers janssen covid-19 vaccines to cambodia as part of the covax program in 2021 on 23 march 2020, a team of seven specialist physicians from southern china's guangxi with medical supplies, including ventilators, medical masks, protective suits, test kits, and infrared temperature sensors, had landed in phnom penh to assist tackling the pandemic. in april 2020 and 2021, vietnam donated us$500 thousand worth of medical supplies to cambodia along with 800 ventilators, 2 million medical masks and 300,000 n95 masks. vietnam's pm told hun sen that hanoi is always ready to assist cambodia in preventing the pandemic. this is one of the biggest aid from vietnam to another countries in prevention against covid-19. in july 2021, cambodia had provided back to severely-plagued vietnam us$350 thousand worth of medical equipment and financial aid. on 21 may 2021, cambodia received 528 packs of cycloferon tablets and 520 packs of cycloferon ampoules providing from russia. cambodia had donated millions of face masks and ppe to laos, myanmar, east timor and nepal. on 24 december 2020, the australian government pledged to assist cambodia with the acquisition and distribution of covid-19 vaccines. the support will include procurement, delivery and health advice. the announcement was made following a meeting between australian ambassador to cambodia, pablo kang and the cambodian minister of economy and finance, aun pornmoniroth in phnom penh on 23 december. through the vaccine maitri initiative, cambodia would receive 1 million covishield vaccine doses from india in march 2021. up to date, 324,000 doses had been arrived. on 1 april 2021, japan aided the country us$1 million through unicef for boosting process of vaccination programme. japan also donated 1 million doses of oxford-astrazeneca vaccine with first batch of 332,000 doses delivered on 23 july 2021. us distributed 1.06 million doses of johnson & johnson vaccine to the country through covax initiative in july 2021. the first batch of 450,500 doses arrived on 30 july. united kingdom announced 415,000 doses of astrazeneca vaccine donation to cambodia, expecting to arrive in august 2021. reception initial response during the early stages of the pandemic, it was reported that prime minister hun sen was downplaying the pandemic and cambodia was not responding in an effort to maintain its close diplomatic and economic relationship with china. in february, hun sen downplayed the risk of the virus at a press conference, suggesting the virus was sensationalized by the media and threatened to expel those present who were wearing masks. hun sen also visited china to show cambodia's support in its response, and offered to visit wuhan specifically. unlike most other countries, cambodia did not cease travel to and from china and did not evacuate its overseas citizens from wuhan during the initial outbreak there. during a press conference on 27 july 2020, at the six month mark of the declaration of a public health emergency of international concern, world health organization director-general tedros adhanom praised cambodia for its success in "preventing large scale outbreak", along with new zealand, rwanda, vietnam and thailand. the who also praised cambodia's welcoming of the ms westerdam. testing procedures concerns have been raised about the lack of widespread community testing in cambodia. in april 2020, testing was reportedly restricted to travellers or those with contact to known covid-19 cases. "regular flu" cases were not being tested. the lack of transparency of these procedures was highlighted in the wake of the hungarian foreign minister's visit in november, as were the breach in safety protocols during the meetings. a number of people travelling from cambodia have tested positive for covid-19 upon arrival in other countries. some experts suggested that covid-19 was circulating undetected in the country during 2020 while others suggested that the hot weather and open-air society kept transmission low. prisons no prisoners were tested for covid-19 despite coming into contact with officials who tested positive, prompting criticism from the cambodian league for the promotion and defense of human rights, particularly as cambodia's prisons are often overcrowded. prisons director nuth savna told vod in december that several prisoners had fever but still did not test them, dismissing this as due to the change in weather. in june 2021, the interior ministry's prisons department admitted that 10-20% of prison inmates in certain prisons had been infected with covid-19, indicating several thousand infections were initially not tested or reported. human rights on 30 march 2020, human rights watch criticized local authorities for engaging in "inflammatory rhetoric against vulnerable groups and foreigners", including having specifically referred to groups (such as khmer islam) as the subject of positive cases in a 17 march facebook post (which incited discriminatory comments), and having blamed foreigners for its spread. it has also criticized the cambodian government for using emergency measures to restrict freedoms, including "baseless" arrests of critics and opposition supporters for "incitement" or dissemination of "fake news", including members of the cambodian national rescue party, and an online journalist who quoted a speech by prime minister hun sen on social media. in april 2021, phnom penh police were criticised by cambodian human rights groups and minister of information khieu kanharith for implementing caning to punish violators of the city's lockdown restrictions. human rights groups, and a group of un special rapporteurs for human rights also expressed concern over the severity of punishments for lockdown violations. notable deaths sderng chea, retired pediatrician chean bunthoeun, disk jockey mao ayuth, filmmaker and politician richard kiri kim, former leader of cambodian freedom fighters uch hean, councillor of peam chor, prey veng long sam'oeun, deputy commissioner of preah vihear thak khamtan, councillor of stung treng pring sakhorn, professor of rupp srey bandaul, co-founder of ngo phare ponleu selpak