The panic in China that led to the mass flight of workers in one of the largest Apple factories in the world

Chinese leader, Xi Jinpinginsists that it will not deviate from its zero covid policy, but the continued chaos that the measure is generating was evident at the Foxconn plant in the city of Zhengzhou.

A few days ago it was said that hundreds of workers fled the plant for fear of being forced to quarantine.

LOOK: “A strong country must have a strong army”: 3 lessons Xi Jinping drew from the collapse of the USSR (and how they mark his government in China)

What sparked the massive leak on the world’s largest Apple computer assembly line was fear, panic and ignorance.

Foxconn, the company that runs this huge factory, must bear some of the responsibility for the fact, but in reality the main cause is the inflexible, strict approach to zero covid imposed in the country.

The BBC spoke to workers who described a situation of urgent need to escape for their own safety. Maybe it wasn’t rational, but some say they feared for their lives.

For example, there is the case of a 21-year-old Foxconn worker who had been hearing the rumors for a while. The more stories and speculations that surfaced, the more extreme they became.

It didn’t help that his immediate bosses at Foxconn said there were no Covid infections at the factory, while the company told the media there were no “symptomatic” infections.

And despite this, there was many known examples of staff who had tested positive.

Hundreds of thousands of employees had been ordered not to leave this huge industrial complex.

But after the workers were confined to the workers’ dormitories and other parts of the factory, the rumors intensified.

This young factory worker heard, for example, that the military was going to come in and take over to enforce some kind of giant “living with covid” experiment, which involved allowing everyone in that part of Zhengzhou city to they will get sick

Some Foxconn staff have been distributing food and water for those who want to leave. (GETTY IMAGES).

According to rumours, the plan was to see how many of them died. And then, if the die-off wasn’t extreme, this would offer a guide to whether or not the rest of China could leave the lockdowns.

Opinions such as “Foxconn is going to take my life” were propagated in workers’ chat groups.

Clearly, the young worker was not the only one who heard this and the workers began to abscond.

On Saturday night, footage was filmed of a yellow barrier fence being pushed up to allow some to escape.

The next morning, she heard that some of her friends They had already reached their places of origin.

Half of those in his eight-person dorm were gone. She packed a suitcase but could not take everything.

rapid spread of covid

Another worker told us that she, too, suddenly panicked before leaving. “To be honest, at first I didn’t think it would be that bad,” she said.

“But then the people around me started to get infected. Positive cases in other dorms were not quarantined for several days. Among those I know who continued to work, all began to be confirmed as positive.

Aside from Foxconn workers, because most of the city of Zhengzhou is currently under some kind of lockdown, the codes in the phone health apps did not allow anyone to leave, at least officially.

This means that even if public transport were in operation, you were not allowed on board and this includes taxis.

The solution for the Foxconn workers was to jump over the fence and just start walking. For some, this meant traveling on foot with everything they could carry for more than 100 km.

You don’t have to look far to see images of long lines of people, mostly young people, dragging luggage along the sides of the roads.

People driving by took pity on them and picked up the workers, taking them as far away as possible.

In scenes reminiscent of the Great Depression a century ago, workers were seen huddled in the backs of trucks, sometimes lighting small fires to keep warm.

Images of what happened have continued to emerge, first spreading through Henan province, then China and around the world.

Is about a total economic disruption caused by zero covid.

A key problem has been widespread ignorance about the nature of the disease. In much of China, people are as terrified of contracting the virus as they are of cancer.

The Chinese government has done little to change these misunderstandings and, in fact, has often made them worse.

China’s zero covid policy has caused widespread disruption to people’s lives. (EPA).

The narrative of those in charge here has been that in other places, covid has spread through the population, but the Chinese should consider themselves lucky because they have the Communist Party to protect them with the zero covid approach.

It is true that this strategy has prevented the country’s hospitals from becoming saturated And it is true that covid has resulted in a tragic loss of life.

However, it is also true that – for the vast majority of infected people who have been vaccinated – contracting the virus means a few days sick at home and nothing more.

This last point is something many in China are completely unaware.

So when the Foxconn workers arrived at their hometowns and were put into hastily built quarantine facilities at local high schools, for them this was not as bad as the Covid hell they imagined would befall them in their factory.

Employees the BBC has spoken to say they don’t know if they will be able to return to work at Foxconn; or if they will even be able to recover their belongings that were left in their bedrooms.

They believe they will lose their attendance bonuses, which increase their salary after working a certain number of days in a row. Again though, none of this matters as much as feeling safe.

Naturally, seeing workers fleeing from their workplace it has drawn condemnation and Foxconn has responded.

The company announced that those who want to attend can do so in safe buses that have now organized in coordination with other locations and that will lead people directly to the quarantine sites, thus ensuring a much quieter and more tidy process.

He also announced the quadruplication of the bonds for the staff that remains in the place and does not take vacations.

The number of people trying to leave the plant have decreased in recent days. (GETTY IMAGES).

In a statement, Foxconn said this was part of an effort to “gradually resume orderly production.”

As an official confinement was imposed again throughout the economic zone of the Zhengzhou airport, the exodus of the factory seems to have been reduced at the moment.

A volunteer, who has been distributing food and water along the roads, told us that what looked thousands escaping last weekend was reduced to dozens and even less in the middle of it.

If Foxconn cannot properly handle this crisis, in the short term it will affect the global supply chains of Apple and other products.

But, in the long run, this shows a much bigger problem for China.

The government’s COVID control system is not able to operate without causing significant interruption, not only in people’s lives, but potentially in key sectors of the economy.

For China’s leader, Xi Jinping, this may not be as important as maintaining political control. But there are only two paths ahead: modify the zero covid approach or see more Foxconn -style disorders in the future.

Source: Elcomercio