Workers at Apple’s largest iPhone production facility in China have escaped after a COVID outbreak forced the factory to lock down.
A barrier outside the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, China, was climbed by about ten people in a video that was uploaded online. Zhengzhou is in the centre of China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s stringent zero-COVID policy is still causing issues for the nation’s residents and businesses.
Unknown numbers of COVID occurrences have been discovered at the factory.
The Henan province capital of Zhengzhou, China, reported 167 locally transmitted diseases last week, up from 97 the week before, according to the Reuters news agency.
As a result, a portion of the roughly 10-million-person city was put under strict lockdown as China continues to fight COVID.
Foxconn, a supplier to US-based Apple with hundreds of thousands of workers at its Zhengzhou facility, has not provided an official estimate of how many of these workers are impacted.
The Taiwan-based company stated on Sunday that it would not stop workers from departing.
The area surrounding the plant had reportedly been cordoned off for days in an effort to limit the outbreak, according to the workers. Additionally, employees who tested positive for COVID were quarantined and subjected to daily testing.
Foxconn announced on October 19 that all dine-in catering at the Zhengzhou factory would be outlawed and that workers would now be required to eat in their dormitories.
For those willing to return home, the statement added that “the [factory] is coordinating with the government to organise workers and cars to provide a point-to-point orderly return service for employees beginning today.”
As part of the nation’s strict zero-COVID policy, cities in China are given the right to take prompt action to contain any viral outbreaks. This could take the form of strict restrictions on movement or total lockdown.
Many people had anticipated that President Xi would overturn the law before the year was through, but he made it abundantly plain at the most recent 20th Communist Party congress that this was not going to happen anytime soon.
