On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 3:10:15 AM UTC+8, David P. wrote:
> Shanghai’s Workers Sleep on Floors to Keep Factories Going Amid Covid-19 Lockdown
> By Yoko Kubota, Apr. 1, 2022, WSJ
>
> Shanghai’s Covid-19 lockdown closed many factories in the
> manufacturing hub. Some of its biggest plants have kept
> humming by adopting a bubblelike environment, with some
> workers saying they slept on the factory floor.
>
> The municipal government in the city has allowed some companies
> to maintain operations by adopting closed-loop systems similar
> to the one China used to host the Winter Olympics, with staff
> working, living and staying within a restricted area.
>
> The strategy is part of frantic efforts by officials and
> companies to balance disparate goals: curbing the growing
> outbreak under stringent Covid-control policies, while keeping
> production going to limit economic damage and global supply-chain
> fallout.
>
> Among the companies staying open is China’s biggest state-owned
> auto maker, SAIC Motor Corp., which is based in the city. Since
> Shanghai’s outbreak worsened in mid-March, SAIC has been operating
> several factories under a closed loop, the company said.
>
> Assembly workers of many Chinese manufacturing giants often live
> in dormitories on or near factory campuses with amenities such
> as canteens and stores. The community-style setup offers an
> advantage to companies when it comes to creating bubble environments
> that would be near-impossible in other parts of the world, though
> it comes with burdens on workers who must be confined there for days,
> if not weeks.
>
> At SAIC, many workers who lived outside the factory campus were
> brought inside, workers and people familiar with the matter said.
> Some of the workers said they initially had to sleep on air
> mattresses on the floor near assembly lines before being moved
> to the gym of a nearby hotel where hundreds of tents were set up.
> Others have been sleeping in the corner of a warehouse, while some
> have been placed in nearby hotels, with up to five in a room, they said.
>
> On day one of the bubble, workers received a package prepared by
> SAIC called a “personal 10-piece set,” which included a quilt,
> towel, air mattress, sleeping bag, underwear and socks, they said.
>
> Workers are tested regularly for Covid-19 and can’t leave the
> closed loop unless there is an emergency. Many workers have been
> inside for two weeks already and it is unclear how long this setup
> will last—some workers said they have heard that the campus won’t
> open up for at least around another week. As of Friday, the west
> and north side of Shanghai went into lockdown, the second half of
> a two-part lockdown for the city that kicked off Monday. Covid-19
> cases in the city hit a record high this week with almost 6,000
> infections announced on Wednesday, though on Friday, the case
> numbers declined to around 4,500.
>
> In Shanghai, Volkswagen AG halted production at its plants
> starting Friday for five days, a spokeswoman said. Before this,
> it had mostly kept them online, some days during which it operated
> them under a closed-loop system, according to a post on WeChat by
> the Volkswagen-SAIC joint venture. Tesla Inc. has halted production
> since Monday.
>
> In the chip sector, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is
> operating its factory under the bubblelike system, according to
> a person familiar with the matter. A TSMC spokeswoman said there
> has been no impact on its production there.
>
> China’s attempt to contain Covid-19 flare-ups has prompted
> major industrial hubs such as Shanghai, Changchun and Shenzhen
> to shut down, and the moves have taken a toll on the nation’s
> economy. The official purchasing managers index for the
> manufacturing sector in March showed that activity is shrinking
> after four straight months of expansion.
>
> Manufacturers are also dealing with an increasingly complicated
> logistics situation to ship their finished goods and secure parts.
> SAIC has experienced delays delivering some autos, people familiar
> with the matter said. The lockdown has ensnared truckers, warehouses
> and other critical links in supply chains.
>
> Some suppliers to SAIC outside of Shanghai have been dealing
> with local outbreaks. SAIC has set up a system in which it
> arranges shipments of key parts if it becomes aware that their
> suppliers could face factory suspension orders from local
> authorities, a person familiar said.
>
> SAIC is one of the biggest employers in Shanghai and the local
> joint-venture partner for General Motors Co. and Volkswagen.
>
> SAIC has passenger-car and engine factories in Lingang, a
> manufacturing zone in Shanghai’s southeast. The plant produces
> around 320,000 vehicles a year, including cars under SAIC’s Roewe
> and MG brands, with some for export.
>
> The half-square-mile campus, which contains canteens, basketball
> courts and stores, was subject to Shanghai’s four-day phase-one
> lockdown that was lifted early Friday, though parts remain tightly
> restricted. A worker at the Lingang car factory with the surname
> Xu said he started living inside the closed loop on March 16. On
> the first night, Mr. Xu slept by the production line, placing
> cardboard and quilts on the floor. The following night, he slept
> on an air mattress there. Some colleagues slept side by side in
> big conference rooms, he said.
>
> From the third day, he and his colleagues have been based at a
> gym of a nearby hotel, from where they have been shuttled in and
> out of the factory campus by bus for the past two weeks. At the
> gym, some 200 male workers live in tents. At night, it is filled
> with the sound of colleagues snoring and not the greatest of smells,
> Xu said.
>
> Around 5,000 people like Xu are now staying on Lingang campus—they
> also include personnel from suppliers and logistics partners,
> according to people familiar with the matter. Workers said they
> receive meals in boxes.
>
> The two weeks in the closed loop have been “very boring,” said Xu.
> After work, he spends his time chatting with his family and friends
> online, he said.
>
> To keep workers on site, SAIC is offering extra money, with some
> receiving double pay for the hours they work, people familiar with
> the matter said. To lighten the mood, a birthday party was organized
> for those born in March, according to a company letter to the Lingang
> workers, posted on the campus’s official WeChat account.
>
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/shanghais-workers-sleep-on-floors-to-keep-factories-going-amid-covid-lockdown-11648809322

The bubble environment in a closed-loop system which China's employers are now used is first used by China at the recent Winter Olympic in February 2022. The bubble environment allows movement of people in a "bubble containment of human movements at each stage of movement in and out of the boundaries of the Olympic.

Although, there is restriction from stage to stage of infection control with Covid testing of people in their stage to stage movements from housing to canteen to training fields and back to their housing, these bubble controls of movement environments had controlled the Beijing Olympic 2022 well to its success.

This bubble environment for work and play and living in the recent Winter Olympic in Beijing will be a new role model for employers to manage their infection control in their offices and factories and even shopping malls.

Henceforth, people should live within the housing boundaries near to their work places so that infection control can be easily managed and controlled without spreading to outside their bubble boundary area of living and working and playing environments.

Therefore, it is timely for them to restructure their business, housing, and play into segments within the bubble environment in various boundaries, so that everyone can still live with the virus around them but the entire community in the bubble is segregated away by boundaries from spreading to others.