BEIJING, Oct. 31 (Reuters) – China’s COVID-19 curbs forced the temporary closure of Disney’s Shanghai resort on Monday, while production of Apple Inc. iPhones at a major contract manufacturing facility could drop 30% in November due to coronavirus restrictions, a source told Reuters.
In Zhengzhou, a Foxconn factory that makes iPhones and employs about 200,000 people has been shaken by dissatisfaction with strict measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, with many employees fleeing the facility, prompting nearby cities to plan to to isolate migrant workers to their place of residence.
“There were so many people on the road, as if we were escaping a famine,” said a Foxconn worker in his 30s, nicknamed Yuan, who said he climbed fences to leave the factory and return to his central hometown. China. Have I.
A person with direct knowledge of the matter said iPhone production at the factory could fall by as much as 30% in November, and Taiwan-based Foxconn, formally Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (2317.TW), is working to increase production at a factory in Shenzhen to make up for the shortfall.
Foxconn said on Sunday it would bring the situation at the Zhengzhou plant under control and coordinate backup production with other factories to mitigate potential impacts.
In Shanghai, the city’s Disney Resort abruptly suspended operations on Monday to comply with COVID-19 prevention measures, requiring all visitors to stay at the time of the announcement until they returned a negative test.
Disney said it was speeding up testing and that all of its visitors had left the theme park. All test results were negative, a spokesperson said, saying Disney is working on plans to reopen.
Videos circulating on China’s Twitter-like Weibo, which could not be independently verified, showed people rushing to the park’s gates, which were already locked. Videos of people fleeing malls and office buildings for fear of being locked up have become commonplace on Chinese social media this year.
Rising numbers of outbreak cases across China have led to a tightening of local curbs and closures, including in parts of cities such as the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, as the economic toll of zero-COVID rises.
Data released Monday showed that Chinese factory activity unexpectedly fell in October, swept by dwindling global demand and strict domestic COVID-19 restrictions, which hit manufacturing, travel and shipping in the world’s second-largest economy.
COVID STRAIGHTER
China has shown little sign of building a foundation that would allow it to pull out of a COVID policy it says is saving lives and has made it an outlier because much of the rest of the world is trying to live with the coronavirus.
At this month’s bi-decade conference of the Communist Party, President Xi Jinping reiterated China’s commitment to zero-COVID, disappointing investors and countless Chinese frustrated by lockdowns, travel restrictions and testing.
“We don’t expect the zero-COVID policy to be abandoned until 2024, meaning virus disruptions will curb personal services activity,” Zichun Huang, an economist at Capital Economics, said in a note.
New cases in mainland China reached 2,898 on Sunday, more than 2,000 for a second day in a row, a small number by global standards.
In Guangzhou, one of China’s largest cities, the number of new locally transmitted cases was 1,110 from Oct. 24-30, up from 402 in the previous seven-day period, with Haizhu district, home to 1.8 million people, under lockdown.
A Guangzhou resident named Ye said he was sent to a suburban quarantine hotel after being told on Thursday that he was considered a close contact for being on the same street at about the same time three days earlier. who tested positive.
“I don’t know how they calculated that. There’s no room for you to investigate or dispute it either,” says Ye, an artist in his 50s.
FLARE UPS
Over the past week, authorities have rushed to get a handle on rising cases in cities across China, including Datong, Xining, Nanjing, Xian, Zhengzhou and Wuhan, forcing temporary lockdown measures.
Du Fan, 40, founder of Wuhan Small Animals Protection Association, which garnered praise from animal lovers during the initial lockdown of the pandemic in the central city in early 2020, said his housing complex was closed on Saturday.
“My main concern at the moment is that if this goes on too much longer, I’m afraid we won’t be able to continue saving the animals because there’s no way to do a lot of work,” he said.
In the China-controlled area of Macau, authorities have reinstated curbs, including closing a major casino over the weekend after a handful of cases were discovered. Macau had been COVID-free for more than three months.
However, in Beijing, the Universal Resort theme park reopened on Monday after being closed last week because a visitor had tested positive for coronavirus.
Additional coverage by Brenda Goh, Yimou Lee, Ryan Woo and editors from Beijing and Shanghai; Writing by Tony Munroe Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Gareth Jones and Jane Merriman
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