The Chinese central government has ordered businesses to resume operations after an extended Lunar New Year holiday. But many are afraid of potentially contracting the novel coronavirus COVID-19 from human interaction, and refused to reopen.
Some local authorities have resorted to deploying police, who enter company premises and force them to operate.
Others have hired chartered planes and buses to pick up migrant workers from their village hometowns and transport them to work in major cities.
Forced To Work
Scientists have confirmed that COVID-19 can be transmitted human-to-human.
According to authorities in Jiangbei district located within Ningbo City, Zhejiang province, a 56-year-old man caught the coronavirus within just 15 seconds of standing next to a 61-year-old infected woman, while they were at the local Shuangdongfang market on Jan. 23.
Many Taiwanese firms with operations in mainland China are nervous about returning to work, but were forced by local authorities to reopen.
On Feb. 17, Hung Sun-Han, Taiwanese lawmaker from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said at a press conference in Taipei, “Now every level of the Chinese government is in chaos trying to control the outbreak. The situation is not transparent. We can foresee that Taiwanese who were forced to go back to work in China are facing tremendous instability and life-threatening risks.”
But Hung didn’t provide details about how Chinese authorities coerced businesses.
A renowned Taiwanese financial reporter Emmy Hu posted on her Facebook page what she learned from Taiwanese execs who own factories: “The heads of several large Taiwanese firms told me that the police bureau in their cities ordered them to resume operations. A Taiwanese businessman from Kunshan City [in Jiangsu province] told me that police visited his office and forced him to call employees who weren’t in town, and [convince them to] come back and work. They [authorities] sent police to each factory to supervise operations.”
Hu also said that many execs cannot buy enough facial masks for their employees. She said several businesses have more than 100,000 employees, many of whom need to travel back to their workplace after traveling to their hometowns during the New Year holiday. The execs worry about the possibility that an employee could have contracted the virus in their hometown or on the way to work—and transmit the virus to their colleagues if they return to work.
