Workers flee Foxconn’s largest iPhone factory in China after brutal Covid lockdown

Haunting footage has shown a glimpse of what life is like inside Covid-zero China, with workers forced to flee a brutal lockdown on foot.

Workers at the world’s largest iPhone factory in central China have fled in dramatic scenes after authorities locked down the premises over a Covid outbreak.

Haunting videos have emerged showing Foxconn employees escaping the company’s compound in Zhengzhou, travelling back to their hometowns on foot to avoid the nation’s strict penalties for breaching lockdown.

China has remained adamant in its ability to achieve Covid-zero and continues to apply harsh measures on the country’s 1.4 billion population almost three years since the initial outbreak.

Henan province, where Zhengzhou is located, officially reported just 42 new Covid infections on Monday.

In one video, workers can be seen hauling suitcases as they climb up a hillside, while another shows people sitting with their luggage by the side of a road as a person in a hazmat suit sprays what appears to be disinfectant at them.

Another video shows workers in hazmat suits crowded around the compound with a voice shouting “murderer” and “all dead in Room 726”.

One woman who claimed to help her 19-year-old brother escape the compound said rubbish had been piling up inside, with workers forced to eat nothing but bread to survive.

“Foxconn really messed up, I don’t think a lot of people would want to go back. I know I wouldn’t,” the woman said via Bloomberg.

The Taiwanese firm — which supplies iPhones to US tech firm Apple — said it was “cooperating with the government to organise personnel and vehicles” for employees who want to leave.

Extraordinary image from Henan, China, reminiscent of migrant worker exodus during India's 2020 lockdown, shows desperate workers walking home after fleeing Foxconn factory lockdown.

Sign above highway reads: "Welcome the 20th Party Congress, Always walk with the Party..." pic.twitter.com/WSVeeUKopT

— Ananth Krishnan (@ananthkrishnan) October 31, 2022

All dead in Room 726. Desperate cry at #Foxconn in Zhengzhou, #Henan province, #CCChina.
Covid-19 lockdown
pic.twitter.com/1qPHWLHPGP

— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferzeng97) October 31, 2022

Foxconn has said it faces a “protracted battle” to stamp out the Covid-19 outbreak, but has not said how many of the more than 200,000 staff are affected or in isolation.

The company has been accused of forcing employees who are unwell to work and not providing medical treatment or timely meals throughout the outbreak.

And China Labor Watch, a New York-based NGO, has also accused the firm of hiding the number of Covid-19 infections among its employees and forcing sick people to continue working, citing an internal message to staff as well as workers at the factory.

Foxconn has insisted that it “is making every effort” to ensure its employees are being looked after.

China is the last major economy committed to a zero-Covid strategy, persisting with snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines in a bid to keep infections down.

But fast-spreading virus variants have challenged that approach, with outbreaks hitting industries hard in recent months, as virus restrictions disrupt factories and curb consumer spending.

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Haunting footage has shown a glimpse of what life is like inside Covid-zero China, with workers forced to flee a brutal lockdown on foot.

Authorities in Henan vowed on Monday to snuff out any outbreaks, with provincial Communist Party chief Lou Yangsheng urging officials to “go all out to fight and win the war of annihilation against the epidemic”.

There would be “absolutely no relaxation” in disease control work, especially in densely populated areas like schools, hospitals, factories, and elderly care homes, Lou said, according to a statement on a provincial government social media account.

Officials “must resolutely overcome psychological slackness, war-weariness and wait-and-see thinking, and fully implement work requirements in a strict, meticulous and practical way”, the statement quoted Lou as saying, without referencing the situation at Foxconn.

The footage came after 28 cities — including the virus’s ground zero Wuhan — were placed under a wave of crippling new measures.

Data released to The Sun Online by economic analysis firm Nomura showed some 208 million people are currently living under some level of lockdown in China.

Officials have described the variants as “highly contagious” as they can also infect people who had been previously immune.

Quarantine camps, food shortages, police seizing people’s homes and drones policing the streets have all been reported in China, as Xi Jinping refuses to back down on his Covid elimination policy.

However, Covid Zero has been described as a “trap of its own making” for the Communist Party, as the economy continues to dip under the weight of the stringent measures.

Virologist Jin Dongyan, from Hong Kong University, told The Washington Post: “If they open up now, there will be a major outbreak immediately.

“However, even if they do not open up, a major outbreak will sooner or later arise somewhere.”

The scientists added the approach is “not sustainable” and “someone has made the wrong judgment”.

“They wrongly assessed the situation in the world, and they cannot come out from their own comfort zone,” he said.

— with AFP