China’s biggest tech hub is rushing to stamp out a new Covid outbreak and is ordering some of the country’s biggest manufacturers to work in a “closed loop” to reduce infections, state media reported.
The city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, reported just 19 Covid cases on Tuesday, as the city’s health agency said the risk of “widespread spread was low”.
But Beijing’s reluctance to back away from its strict zero-Covid policy had led to daily mass testing for Shenzhen’s 13 million residents for over a week and the closure of at least three subway stations through Tuesday.
Top manufacturers such as iPhone maker Foxconn, electric car maker BYD, drone maker DJI and telecom equipment maker ZTE are among the companies being asked to operate in a “closed-loop” production system.
It would restrict employees’ freedom of movement for seven days, state business news site Yicai reported on Monday.
The closed-loop mode of operation includes control measures such as locking workers inside a compound and conducting daily nucleic acid testing.
Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that a government notice urged companies to reduce unnecessary interactions between non-manufacturing staff and factory floors to curb infections.
Health officials had previously said all cases found in Shenzhen as of July 15 were infected with the highly contagious Omicron subvariant BA.2.
Although this is expensive and reduces production scale, manufacturers – including Tesla’s site south of Shanghai in the past – have opted to operate in a closed-loop rather than resort to full shutdown during local Covid flare-ups.
Tight virus controls have threatened global supply chains and chilled China’s economy, with second-quarter growth a dismal 0.4 percent — the weakest growth since the pandemic began.
China reported 976 Covid cases on Tuesday, with the largest outbreaks reported in southern Guanxi region and northwestern Gansu province.
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