As of last Friday, all of MCC Phnom Penh’s personnel have at least received their first vaccine dose. More than half of national staff have received their second dose. We have two staff in the countryside who are not yet vaccinated but that’s due to preexisting medical conditions. Crystal and I were in the last group of MCC Phnom Penh personnel – all expatriates – to receive our first dose. We feel fortunate that Cambodia has made the vaccine available to all foreigners in their country.

I haven’t seen this noted broadly in the news, though it was acknowledged in the Australian press, but Cambodia is number three is Asia for vaccinations per 100 people after Singapore (#1) and China (#2). This is largely due to massive donations of vaccine from China, a shipment of one million arrived this week and they’ve requested 5 million more this summer. The first wave of vaccinations was focused on priority groups across the country but the new “blossom” plan is focused on fully vaccinating Phnom Penh first, then tourist hot spots like Siem Reap, and then spreading out to the rest of the country.

We received the vaccine produced by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. We hesitated to take this vaccine for some time due to a lack of transparency and clear data about potential side effects. We decided to move forward with Sinovac based on the WHO SAGE data (particularly the conclusions on page 32) and checking in with Cambodians who had received the vaccine. We may have made the same decision even without that data because we think COVID-19 poses greater risk to our health than most vaccine side effects and because we feel we have a responsibility to vaccinate to protect the local community, but certainly the WHO process helped inform our decision and calm our doubts. We supported any team members who wanted to wait for their vaccine of preference but, in end, all but one of the expats (the exception decided to return to the US and get vaccinated there) decided to get the same vaccine as our local community.

I was surprised by how relieved I felt to receive the first dose of vaccine last Friday. I didn’t realize how I’d be carrying the weight of the pandemic since January 2020 (when it first arrived in Cambodia) and what a concrete step forward the first dose felt like. Our second dose is scheduled for just before Catherine’s birthday. We’re going to continue being cautious, we’ll continue wearing masks despite the new CDC guidelines, but what an emotional relief.

We have a sense that this will not be the last COVID-19 vaccine we receive but that seasonal COVID-19 boosters may be a reality of the future. Especially as we follow news of the South African variant which seems to have some measure of vaccine resistance.