Workers confined to quarters following COVID outbreak at Chinese iPhone factory - SiliconANGLE News

Supplies of Apple Inc. iPhones are astatine hazard aft a Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. (Foxconn) mill in Zhengzhou, China, the largest iPhone mill successful the world, was deed by a COVID-19 outbreak.

Despite astir of the satellite moving connected from the COVID-19 pandemic, the 1 notable objection is China which has continued to enforce Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy. Nearly 3 years into the pandemic, mainland China has continued to beryllium deed by lockdowns, adjacent arsenic acold arsenic guests astatine Shanghai Disneyland being locked successful the parkland yesterday pursuing a affirmative COVID test.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Foxconn is scrambling to incorporate a weekslong COVID-19 outbreak astatine the Zhengzhou mill with astir 3 100 1000 workers – that’s however large the mill is, being placed nether a closed-loop strategy for astir 2 weeks. Under the COVID prevention system, workers are unopen disconnected from the extracurricular satellite and tin lone determination betwixt their dorms oregon homes to the accumulation line.

Some workers astatine the mill are said to person been confined to their quarters for days and determination are besides reported issues with the organisation of nutrient and different indispensable items – thing seen before during lockdowns successful China. Many workers are said to beryllium excessively frightened to transportation connected moving owed to the hazard of infection.

Officially, Foxconn is denying what it calls “online rumors” that implicit 20,000 cases had been detected astatine the factory, alternatively saying that lone a “small fig of employees” are affected by the pandemic and that it is providing indispensable supplies. “A abrupt outbreak disrupted our mean life,” Foxconn told employees connected Friday. “An orderly advancement successful some pandemic prevention and output depends connected the efforts of each staff.”

Officially, determination person lone been 95 cases detected successful the full of Zhengzhou, a metropolis of 10 cardinal people, implicit the past 4 days, but Chinese Communist Party figures regarding COVID cases are generally not believed, astatine slightest successful the west.

Foxconn has worked through erstwhile outbreaks, but various reports person workers fleeing the Zhengzhou factory, including climbing implicit fences to flight a strict lockdown. Exactly however overmuch this volition impact iPhone proviso is hard to ascertain, fixed it’s unclear however galore workers proceed to enactment successful the factory.

Apple Insider reports that iPhone 14 Pro pb times person accrued from 24 days 7 weeks aft motorboat to 31 days successful week eight. While that is not a agelong blow-out, it’s aboriginal days. Unless Foxconn tin code the situation, the pb times are apt to importantly summation successful the coming weeks arsenic proviso drops comparative to mill production.

Photo: Duncan Riley