Several reportedly walked on roads and fields for days.
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People with suitcases and leave the Foxconn compound in Zhengzhou
Workers fled an Apple factory in China to a strict Covid lockdown at the high-security complex.
Foxconn left the factory in Zhengzhou on Saturday after an unknown number were forced to quarantine at the facility earlier this month due to a virus outbreak.
An organization of people, purportedly workers at the Foxconn factory, are seen hemmed in and transporting their belongings on a highway in videos circulating on China’s Douyin social media platform.
It is known if the corporate allowed the staff to leave or if it resorted to the escape.
Several of those who left reportedly walked for days to reach checkpoints and CCTV surveillance on public transport.
During the day, they also crossed wheat fields with their belongings, according to a user of the social media platform WeChat. “I still couldn’t be sad,” he added.
It shows whether the staff escaped or were allowed to leave.
Village volunteers distributed food and drinks to the workers. One volunteer, who asked to be known only as Zhang, distributed materials from his village in Xingyang County.
He said the other people shown in a video he uploaded to Douyin were Foxconn workers, as they would have had to take that path if they left the compound.
Taiwan-based Foxconn said Sunday it would prevent staff from leaving to return to their hometowns. He checked how many employees had left, nor how many had stayed with Covid.
The company promised it would guarantee the safety, valid rights and source of income of staff who wanted to stay, according to the Zhengzhou government’s official WeChat public account.
Foxconn organizing buses to take the workers, who had left, home, with at least seven pick-up points, reports the South China Morning Post (SCMP) citing the Zhengzhou government’s social media posts.
Manufacturing Apple products, adding the iPhone
Cities in central China rushed to make plans to isolate Foxconn staff traveling home, fearing they could spread the coronavirus after leaving the factory.
The local government in Yuzhou, Changge and Qinyang suggested Foxconn inform the local government before returning home.
Foxconn also promised that staff who chose to remain at the complex would get smart meals and that normal PCR testing and disinfection of production lines and dormitories would be carried out, the SCMP adds.
The factory, in Henan province, is one of the largest in China that assembles Apple devices, iPhones. It has a capacity of up to 350,000 employees.
Zhengzhou reported 167 coronavirus cases transmitted in the seven days to Oct. 29, compared with 97 infections in the past seven days.
Earlier this week, media reported that the plant had implemented a “closed loop” formula that largely restricts staff between its dormitories and meeting lines.
Foxconn staff complained about poor food quality and lack of medical care for those who tested positive, according to local media.
The company has denied rumors that another 20,000 people at the factory have been infected with covid.
Additional information via Reuters and Associated Press.
People with suitcases and leave the Foxconn compound in Zhengzhou
A. P. Hangpai Xingyang
It shows whether the staff escaped or were allowed to leave.
Manufacturing Apple products, adding the iPhone
fake images
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