lockdown

Quanta Shanghai Manufacturing City would seem like an ideal site to implement China's "closed-loop" management system to prevent the spread of COVID that requires staff to live and work on-site in a secure bubble.Sprawled over land the size of 20 football fields, the campus houses factories, living quarters for 40,000 workers, some living 12 per room, and even a supermarket.But as COVID-19 breached Quanta's defences, the system broke down into chaos on Thursday.Videos posted online showed more than a hundred Quanta…

Home to around 25 million, some residents of the Chinese city are minting their lockdown-related visuals as non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) or buying and selling content through cryptocurrencies that cannot be erased. POPaganda, a non-fungible token collection created by Malaysian artist Simon Fong depicting life…

A report from Asia said a few days ago that Foxconn is ramping up iPhone 13 hiring in Zhengzhou at Apple’s request. This prompted speculation that iPhone 14 production might start earlier than usual, as Apple is navigating the new COVID-19 lockdowns in the region. The iPhone 14 is Apple’s most important product launch of the year, and the company is aiming for a usual September release schedule. Pandemic restrictions might get in the way of those plans. The report said that Zhengzhou did not have to go into…

But things started to take a downturn last year. Despite the hype and money, these companies struggled to make a profit as lockdowns eased and people simply went back to shopping in person. What’s worse, they were caught in China’s new fight against antitrust behavior. The Chinese government was quick to impose fines and pen editorials questioning the value of the industry. As a result, the once-promising startups and big tech companies decided to cut back on their expansion plans, implement massive layoffs, or outright…

Delhi lockdown is in effect, as announced by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal as daily COVID-19 cases continue to grow rapidly. Although the government is restricting normal movement and only allowing essential services, select individuals can apply for an e-pass to travel during the state lockdown. The Delhi government website has provided the provision to apply for an e-pass online to people involved in sectors including banking, food delivery, pharmaceuticals, and private security, among others. The aim of limiting…