Escape from Foxconn: Workers recount Covid chaos at iPhone factory

Beijing: Zhang Yao recalls the moment he realised something had gone deeply wrong at the Chinese mega-factory where he and hundreds of thousands of other workers assembled iPhones and other high-end electronics.

In early October, supervisors suddenly warned him that 3,000 colleagues had been taken into quarantine after someone tested positive for Covid-19 at the factory.

“They told us not to take our masks off,” Zhang, speaking under a pseudonym for fear of retaliation, told AFP by telephone.