The largest iPhone manufacturer in the world was surrounded by security measures on Wednesday after employees left the building to circumvent COVID regulations.
On Wednesday, local officials stated in a statement that the Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone, in central China, where Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn runs a large plant, began seven days of “static management,” a euphemism for lockdown.
Images of people escaping the Foxconn facility, which employs hundreds of thousands of people, emerged last week on Chinese social media.
Employees were complaining about bad working conditions and having to flee the factory on foot to avoid COVID transportation curbs on social media.
According to the officials’ statement on Wednesday, everyone else besides COVID prevention volunteers and essential workers “must not leave their residences except to undergo COVID tests and emergency medical care.”
Only medical and delivery vehicles for essentials will be permitted on the streets, they claimed.
As the last major economy to commit to a zero-COVID strategy, China continues to implement sudden lockdowns, extensive testing, and lengthy quarantines to contain spreading outbreaks.
A large portion of the country now lives under a constantly shifting mosaic of COVID curbs as a result of new versions that have put local officials’ ability to stamp out flare-ups as they spread to other regions to the test.
