COVID-19 As virus cases explode, why has the Mekong region success story ended?
Few outings to a nightclub can claim such dire consequences as the early-February gathering at N8, a windowless adult entertainment venue in an unsuspecting district of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
Two women, unwitting carriers of the more-infectious B.1.1.7 variant of Covid-19, also known as the UK strain, would infect scores of people in attendance that night on February 8 as they mingled among crowds. They were two of four women – arrivals a day earlier on a private jet from Dubai, bound for the city’s high-end commercial sex industry – who had been smuggled out of quarantine at the luxury Sokha Hotel that evening by an unnamed broker.
Alastair McCready, Wanpen Pajai, and Govi Snell
