China's zero-Covid policy has just hit Apple's biggest iPhone factory Foxconn. Hundreds of workers at the plant have reportedly fled fearing lockdown following the detection of over 150 Covid cases in the Henan province of China. Multiple videos and pictures have surfaced on social media showing hundreds of people walking on roads and fields to get back home. BBC's China correspondent Stephen McDonnell in a tweet on Sunday said workers had broken out of Apple’s largest assembly site, escaping the lockdown at Foxconn. After sneaking out, he said, the workers were walking to hometowns more than 100 kilometers away to beat the Covid app measures designed to control people.
A Twitter user by the name of Hao Hong shared a 23-second video in which hundreds of people can be seen on fields and roads. The user said tens of thousands of Foxconn workers were walking out of factory lockdown, going home barefoot. He further said 2022 hadn’t been kind to Henan’s people. "Hope they get home safe," he said.
Another user Songpinganq shared a series of videos in which a number of trucks can be seen moving towards a building. He claimed that it was the military moving into the Chinese iPhone factory to reinforce the lockdown. He also claimed that the Chinese network carriers are deploying mobile phone jammers in the factory to cut off the workers' communications to stop them from speaking out about what's going on in the lockdown factory.
Alexander Boyd, another user, said some incredible images were circulating on Weibo - Chinese microblogging website. "Young Foxconn workers WALKING home from the factory in Zhengzhou, where an outbreak is causing lockdowns. Some picked up by truck drivers, riding in the back of the bed. Looks like a different era," the user said.
Chinese mouthpiece Global Times said Foxconn issued three notices on Sunday to its factory workers, saying arrangements and security protection measures had been made for employees who volunteer to stay in the park and those who wish to return home.
The Chinese tabloid said that the company had denied reports that about 20,000 workers had been diagnosed with Covid. It said Foxconn had confirmed that only "a small number of employees" had Covid and production at the plant remained "relatively stable".
On October 19, Foxconn banned all dine-in catering at the plant and directed workers to eat meals in their rooms. However, on Sunday, the company informed that the Chinese government had agreed to resume dine-in meals to improve the convenience and satisfaction of employees' lives.
Financial Times spoke to one worker who said it was total chaos in the dormitories he and his colleagues were being kept in. He said some workers jumped a plastic fence and a metal fence to get out of the campus.