SHANGHAI - Several Shanghai residents received fresh stay-at-home orders and mandatory testing notices on Tuesday as the authorities raced to trace contacts linked to a Covid-19-positive woman whose visit to the city’s Disney Resort prompted its temporary lockdown.
In the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, meanwhile, Apple iPhone manufacturer Foxconn announced a big increase in bonuses to stem an exodus of workers rattled by coronavirus curbs at its vast facility there, as China’s strict zero-Covid policy exacts a rising toll on the world’s No.2 economy.
Rising unease in China’s commercial hub of Shanghai comes as the country’s daily local case count hit 2,719.
It is a small figure by global standards but the country’s highest level since Aug 17.
It has prompted other cities such as Guangzhou and Dandong to tighten measures, although Zhengzhou unexpectedly eased its quasi-lockdown.
Visitors to Shanghai Disneyland were barred from leaving on Monday until tests cleared them of Covid-19 after an infected person was traced to the theme park. This was the second time people have been locked inside due to China’s zero-tolerance virus approach.
Patrons were told they could leave once they tested negative for the virus, the local government said in a statement after the facility was shut earlier in the day.
Everyone was tested and the park is now empty, a spokesman for Walt Disney Co told Bloomberg News early on Tuesday.
Several city residents told Reuters they were notified on Tuesday that they or their children could not go to work or school if they had visited Disney since last Thursday. They were told to take daily tests for the next three days.
One said she was informed that her family might have to go into central quarantine.
Disney visitor Marvis He was among those caught up in the resort’s lockdown, having flown in from Shenzhen in hopes of enjoying the park’s Halloween-themed fireworks.
“I feel disappointed, we waited so long in the park... but we didn’t get to see anything and only got to get out at 10pm,” she told Reuters as she departed the resort.
“We were also cold and hungry,” added her companion.
The situation mirrors that of a year ago, when Disney’s resort and parks in Shanghai were closed due to association with a Covid-19 case. Some 34,000 visitors still inside were subjected to a mass testing exercise, with Covid-19 workers in full personal protective equipment manning the theme park’s gates, before they could leave. While everyone was found negative at the time, the visitors were still asked to isolate at home for two days. The flagship theme park reopened in June after being closed for 101 days during the city’s lockdown this spring.
The extreme reaction to just one Covid-19 case is typical of China’s approach to the virus almost three years into the pandemic. While the rest of the world is living with Covid-19, Beijing still sees it as a major threat that needs to be quashed. Lockdowns, prolific testing and border restrictions are still deployed when outbreaks emerge, all hallmarks of a zero-Covid policy that is dragging on the economy.
China reported 2,675 new Covid-19 infections on Sunday. The uptick in cases is leading to a raft of new restrictions from Wuhan, the original epicentre, to the world’s biggest iPhone factory in its industrial heartland.
Foxconn has been one of the biggest corporate names affected by a quasi-lockdown of Zhengzhou, a major logistics hub in central China.
The firm put its 200,000 workers at its plant in the city under closed-loop management on Oct 13, triggering complaints from employees about food and their treatment and prompting many to leave.
In recent days, videos appearing to show departing Foxconn workers laden with luggage and walking along village roads towards their home towns have gone viral on Chinese social media.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the footage but workers have shared similar accounts with Reuters.
A source told Reuters on Monday that the production of iPhones at the plant could slump by as much as 30 per cent in December due to the situation.
Foxconn on Tuesday said it would quadruple daily bonuses for some of the plant’s workers to 400 yuan (S$77) should they continue to work there through November.
Zhengzhou unexpectedly lifted its quasi-lockdown on its nearly 13 million people, even as new locally transmitted cases more than doubled on Monday from the day before.
“For over 10 days, we have persevered and fought together, fighting the disease, advancing and retreating together, and working hard together, and finally we are ushering in a large-scale restoration of normal life and production in Zhengzhou,” the city’s counter-epidemic task force wrote in an online letter to residents.
The current outbreak in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, flared up after the Oct 1 to 7 National Day holidays, prompting the local authorities to start imposing the lockdown of various districts.
BLOOMBERG, REUTERS
