China’s Workers Are Calling In Sick With Covid After Beijing’s U-Turn

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.

The abrupt retreat after almost three 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.

The result is many factories are coping with severe staffing shortages and struggling to keep their employees healthy.

“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.

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.

“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.”

These supplies are running out, he said.