These restrictions concern more than 6 million people. The area where the largest iPhone factory in the world is located, belonging to Foxconn, is spared.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
Zhengzhou recorded 675 new infections at SARS-COV-2, the vast majority of which were asymptomatic. In this city in the center of China, where violent protests took place in the largest iPhone factory in the world on Wednesday, a confinement was imposed in several districts by the municipal authorities Thursday, November 24, due to a flambée cases of COVID-19.
The inhabitants of the city center are no longer authorized to leave the area without a negative covid test and the authorization of the local authorities, and they are advised not to leave their home “unless necessary”, announced the municipal authorities of Zhengzhou.
These restrictions, which will last five days from Friday midnight, concern more than 6 million people, or about half of the city’s population. The opinion of the authorities, published after the workers’ demonstration, also requires that all the inhabitants of eight districts submit to a daily PCR test during this five -day period.
The iPhone factory area, which belongs to the large Taiwanese technological group Foxconn, is not concerned by the health restrictions of the locality. But it has been subject to anti-COVVID-19 restrictions for more than a month due to the multiplication of cases in the dormitories of its workers.
The personnel of the industrial site mobilized Wednesday due to a controversy around the amount of a promised premium, according to a worker interviewed by the France-Presse agency. The premium would have gone from 3,000 to 30 yuan (from 400 to 4 euros).
Several employees are also exasperated by “chaotic” living conditions on the site due to health restrictions, said this worker, who wants to remain anonymous to avoid any reprisals.
Foxconn apologized on Thursday, assuring that a “technical error” in his payment system was at the origin of the problem around the premiums. The group says it “fully understands” workers’ concerns. “The company will also make its best to proactively resolve the concerns and reasonable requests for employees,” said the Taiwanese company.
Last month, workers, panicked by the unexpected containment of the factory, had fled the site on foot, some complaining of the disorganization prevailing on the spot.
As part of the strict “zero covid” health policy that China tirelessly applies, the slightest increase in cases leads to closing whole cities and placing the people tested in quarantine. But this strategy today arouses weariness and resentment of a large part of the population.
China is the last great economy to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus, a strategy that arouses weariness and resentment within a large part of the population while the pandemic will soon enter its fourth year.
The number of cases of daily covid in the country reached 31,454 Thursday, a record level, which is relatively little compared to the 1.4 billion inhabitants of China, but exceeds the recorded peak -Avril when the megalopole Shanghai was under confinement.