BEIJING: On Wednesday, Chinese officials closed off the area around the largest iPhone production in the world after employees left the building to circumvent COVID regulations.
Wednesday marked the beginning of a seven-day period of “static management,” a code word for lockdown, at the Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone in Central China, home to a sizable manufacturing facility operated by Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn.
Hundreds of thousands of workers at Foxconn’s plant were seen breaking out in pictures posted last week on Chinese social media.
Online complaints about the terrible working environment and having to leave the factory on foot to evade COVID transit limits were made by employees.
All individuals, with the exception of COVID preventive volunteers and necessary employees, “must not leave their dwellings unless to undergo COVID testing and emergency medical care,” the officials stated on Wednesday.
Only medical and delivery trucks for necessities will be permitted on the streets, they claimed.
China is the final large economy to be committed to a zero-COVID approach, continuing with sudden lockdowns, widespread testing, and protracted quarantines in an effort to contain spreading epidemics.
A large portion of the nation now lives under a constantly shifting patchwork of COVID restrictions as a result of new versions that have challenged local authorities’ capacity to put out flare-ups before they spread.
