On Wednesday, the Chinese government imposed lockdowns on another 600,000 people in and around the world’s largest iPhone factory, as staff complained of disorderly Covid checks at the factory.
All other people, covid prevention volunteers and essential staff “should not leave their apartments for covid testing and emergency medical care,” officials from the Zhengzhou airport economic zone in central China said.
The move comes after photographs surfaced on Chinese social media last week showing other people leaving the facility, which is run by Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn and makes products for Apple.
Employees complained online about poor conditions, lack of supplies, and the need to flee the factory on foot due to Covid shipping restrictions. Foxconn says there are more than 200,000 employees at its Zhengzhou plant lately.
“Getting paid is no longer vital, the most important thing is to survive,” a 30-year-old man who works at Foxconn told AFP, saying he stayed at the factory because he fears the outbreak would worsen in his hometown.
“Anti-virus measures on campus are chaotic, other HIV-negative people live with other HIV-positive people,” said the worker, who asked not to be identified.
He said the food provided to workers was “not satiating” and complained about the lack of medicine for his colleagues in poor health.
China is the newest primary economy committed to a Covid-zero strategy, persisting with instant lockdowns, mass and prolonged quarantines in an effort to eliminate emerging outbreaks.
But the new variants have tested the local government’s ability to quell outbreaks faster than they can spread, putting much of the country under an ever-changing patchwork of Covid borders.
The Zhengzhou city district said Wednesday that all enterprises will have to work from home, and that only “key enterprises” will be allowed to continue operating. He did specify which corporations fell into this category.
Only medical cars and those delivering goods are allowed on the streets.
The district’s more than 600,000 citizens will have to undergo nucleic acid testing every day, the local government said, warning it would “crack down on all kinds of violations. “
The Communist Party-run Dahe Daily said Wednesday that the local government would “thoroughly disinfect” Foxconn’s facilities, adding dormitories for workers, over the next 3 days. Workers quarantined at the plant would have to provide seven days of negative tests before leaving for their hometown.
The newspaper also reported that the government had promised to supply food in a timely manner and set up a helpline for workers.
‘Closed loop’
Foxconn told AFP on Wednesday that its Zhengzhou park “maintains closed-circuit operation,” offering details.
The company said over the weekend that it would screen workers daily and provide transportation to those who wanted to leave, after videos on social media showed workers walking on roads with their bags.
Footage shared with AFP by a Foxconn worker shows a large organization of workers pushing their bags down an abandoned road Tuesday afternoon into a line of others in hazmat uniforms.
The Zhengzhou plant accounts for about 80 percent of iPhone 14 production, senior analyst Ivan Lam of Counterpoint Research told AFP.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment from AFP.
Local governments in the region surrounding the city of Zhengzhou have asked Foxconn staff to register with the government if they return home and spend several days of quarantine upon arrival.
The company also said Tuesday it would quadruple bonuses for workers who wish to remain at the factory during the outbreak.
Chinese social media users on Wednesday accused the Zhengzhou government of “performatively” lifting covid restrictions after the city announced a day earlier that it would “restore production and life in general. “
“In the morning you lift the lockdown, then in the evening you close it, what are you going to do?” asked Taodixing, a Weibo user.
China on Wednesday reported more than 2,000 new domestic infections for the third straight day.
Henan province, where Zhengzhou is located, officially reported 359 covid-19 infections on Wednesday, up from 104 on Tuesday.
South China’s production hub Guangzhou also announced partial closures in several districts this week in reaction to emerging cases.
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According to analysts at Capital Economics, the number of other people quarantined in China has peaked since Shanghai’s closure in the spring, with outbreaks in more than 50 cities.
(With the exception of the title, this story has not been edited through NDTV and is published from a syndicated feed. )
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