Fact check: Post wrong to link vaccinations to a COVID-19 spike in Cambodia

The claim: Cambodia did not have a COVID-19 outbreak until vaccines arrived

Vaccine opponents are looking to Cambodia to falsely assert that vaccines may actually make COVID-19 more dangerous.

“Cambodia is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world: 81.3% of its population has received at least one dose of the vaccine,” reads an Oct. 6 Facebook post. “And there are now more COVID-19 ‘cases’ in Cambodia than ever before. According to official government data, before the advent of vaccines against Covid, there were no problems with morbidity in the country.”

The post hasn’t accumulated many shares, but similar claims have circulated on Instagram, messaging apps like Telegram and blogs like Before It’s News. Some of the posts compare a graph of Cambodia’s daily COVID-19 case count with one of the vaccination rate.

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Devon Link