Foxconn's iPhone Assembly Plant in Zhengzhou Disinfected

The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is disinfected on Saturday during a COVID-19 outbreak. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, was disinfected and cleaned thoroughly on Saturday during an outbreak of COVID-19, to offer a safe and secure environment for workers.

More than 2,000 people participated in the treatment and comprehensive disinfection work in the 5.6 million-square-meter compound, organized by the local authorities. It is the world's largest Apple iPhone assembly plant.

"The coronavirus mainly spreads via the air, so frequent disinfection is necessary," said Sun Jianli, deputy general manager of Cleaner Environment, one of the companies involved in the cleaning work. "We use both machines and human labor to disinfect employees' apartments three times a day. We have to work overtime to offer a good living environment for workers."

The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is disinfected on Saturday during a COVID-19 outbreak. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Li Huiyong, who leads a team of 380 that treats garbage, said household waste would be transported to incineration plants, and medical waste would be properly disposed of.

Zhengzhou reported 41 new locally transmitted confirmed cases and 256 asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 on Sunday. Li Huifang, deputy secretary-general of the municipal government, said at a news conference on Sunday that the recent outbreak has become the longest and had affected the most people since COVID-19 emerged.

The impact of multichain transmission has posed great challenges in city governance and services, so that sometimes the local government failed to transport patients in time, offer sufficient necessities, or take targeted prevention and control measures, which greatly affects people's work and life, she said.

The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is disinfected on Saturday during a COVID-19 outbreak. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

She apologized for that and said the voice of the people will be heard to solve problems that worry them most. Misconduct involving excessive epidemic control will be punished, she added.

She said the city will provide more rooms for quarantine by renovating public rental houses and signing agreements with hotels, and it will prepare more beds for use in medical treatment to confront a possible larger epidemic this winter and next spring.

Traditional Chinese medicine will be used in patients' treatment, along with psychological counseling services, to meet personalized needs, she said.