On Monday, December 26, 2022 at 10:14:45 PM UTC-8, David P. wrote:
> China’s Workers Are Calling In Sick With Covid After Beijing’s U-Turn
> By Selina Cheng and Dan Strumpf, Dec. 20, 2022, WSJ
>
> HONG KONG—China’s factories are confronting a new reality after the nation’s sharp U-turn from its zero-Covid policy: Their workers are often out sick or working alongside colleagues who have come down with the virus.
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> Beijing began lifting many of its harshest Covid-19 restrictions earlier this month, including strict quarantines and mandatory testing requirements that have angered large parts of its population and disrupted the economy.
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> A number of cities and regions—including the western manufacturing hub of Chongqing, Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province, and Wuhu city in Anhui province—have even said people with mild Covid cases can still go to work.
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> The abrupt retreat after almost 3 years has left employees to come and go from factories and offices without any testing requirements or isolation of the sick. The “closed loop” systems under which workers were isolated for days or weeks at their factories have also been halted.
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> The result is many factories are coping with severe staffing shortages and struggling to keep their employees healthy.
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> “Operationally, factories are a mess,” said Cameron Johnson, partner at consulting firm Tidal Wave Solutions in Shanghai. He said he had heard from one supplier of plastics and other raw materials in the southern factory city of Dongguan where as many as 85% of workers are out with Covid.
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> “Now in a way it’s to the other extreme—very little guidance from the government,” said Eric Zheng, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. “Companies really have to figure out some basic stuff—getting health kits to employees, including antigen tests and masks and medicines and so forth.”
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> These supplies are running out, he said.
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> The end of the zero-Covid policy has been met with a wave of infections. Official statistics for daily Covid infections and deaths are low, with China’s National Health Commission reporting 2,656 cases and five deaths on Monday. But experts believe they vastly undercount the number of infections, and interviews with Chinese factory workers indicate the relaxed rules have resulted in many falling sick.
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> Covid testing requirements for the thousands of workers at Tesla Inc.’s gigafactory in Shanghai and Volkswagen AG’s plant in the northeastern city of Changchun have been scrapped, staff from the car makers said.
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> Instead of taking mandatory PCR tests every day or every other day before entering the factory floors, Tesla staff now take optional tests if they experience flu-like symptoms. Workers said they are supposed to report positive tests to their supervisors and call in sick.
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> At one of Tesla’s factory divisions, around 20 of the staff, almost a fifth of the team, were out on sick leave early this week, a worker said.
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> Tesla didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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> At the Volkswagen plant in Changchun city, the German auto maker has run a single work shift instead of two since last Saturday, one of its factory staff said. The car maker plans to resume two shifts producing models from Volkswagen’s high-end Audi brand on Wednesday, according to a company memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
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> Volkswagen said Monday that its production in China remains stable. It welcomed the easing of pandemic controls, adding that it would help stabilize production. Employees who test positive with Covid should stay home and all staff should wear masks, minimize time at the office and keep their distance from each other, Volkswagen said.
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> Volkswagen employees have been required to consume company-distributed lunchboxes while socially distanced at their work stations along the assembly line, instead of in the factory canteen, the worker said.
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> To help workers cope with Covid-related stresses, the trade union for state-owned SAIC Motor Corp., which shares joint-ventures with Volkswagen and General Motors Co., has begun to offer online counseling services.
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> This drastic shift in policies stands in contrast to earlier in the year, when authorities ordered strict, no-compromise measures such as lockdowns, regular testing, aggressive quarantines and contact tracing.
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> At Dell Technologies Inc.’s plant in the southeastern city of Xiamen, Covid rules remain strict. Some of Dell’s office staff have been asked to work from home, and every week, employees are required to submit negative Covid test results from the past 24 hours if they wish to enter certain zones at the facility, according to a post on the company’s facilities department social-media account on Tuesday.
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> Most maintenance services by contractors are suspended and the company isn’t allowing external visitors during this period without special permission, the department said.
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> Dell didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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> China stopped counting asymptomatic Covid cases after scaling back mass testing, a move that effectively ended the government’s ability to assess the scale and extent of the current wave of infections. The low reported death rate contrasts with dire forecasts from epidemiological models of a massive spike in cases as the most-transmissible Omicron strain to date rips through the population.
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> Since the removal of Covid restrictions, China’s state media have been reporting that large state-owned enterprises are ditching their closed-loop operations and reverting to full production. According to the Beijing News, a Communist Party-owned paper, data from Dec. 17 indicated power consumption at the capital’s manufacturing industries had risen by 15% since the middle of November.
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> On social media, several users posted about widespread Covid outbreaks at smaller factories across the country, where large numbers of workers have called in sick, resulting in delays to production and the fulfillment of customer orders.
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> Jörg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said that Beijing’s about-face has undermined confidence in the country’s pandemic-response efforts and that authorities would have to work hard to regain trust from the business community.
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> Still, Mr. Wuttke said the sudden reopening, while disruptive, offers a better path forward than extended lockdowns, which had caused supply-chain disruptions and made business planning all but impossible.
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> “The only good news is that after 7-10 days people are primarily out of the woods and they can come back,” he said. “That’s in contrast to a lockdown policy that starts at the end of March and leaves you wondering what’s coming for the next 60-80 days.”
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> https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-factories-once-followed-zero-covid-orders-but-now-are-on-their-own-11671559183

Mao : Great Leap Forward :: Xi : Zero Covid